Lesson 11a - Fundamentals of Part-writing

Introduction

How would you go about harmonizing the following melody?

Without actually doing so, look at the following example and make a list of all the things you would need to do to harmonize this melody.

Conclusion

In no particular order, you would need to determine:

• Harmonies
• Harmonic rhythm
• Cadences
• Bass lines
• Inner voices
• Texture

To this point in the course, we have discussed each of these, but you have spent most of your assignments analyzing existing examples rather than creating your own music. You can now combine all the tools that we have studied to begin this process. We will start by establishing our guidelines for part-writing–basic rules and structures to guide your voice-leading.

If you did not access our guide to part-writing in the last unit, you can find it here. Part-Writing Error Checklist and Guide We will continue referencing this for the rest of the unit, so you will probably want to print this out or open it in a separate window.

A first attempt

Let’s try to harmonize the simple melody below with one harmony per pitch.

To harmonize a melody in a four-part chorale style, you should:

• Identify the key
  • Look for melodic patterns, starting pitches, and ending pitches for clues as to an implied key.
• Determine your phrase
  • For the excerpt below, you have little room for decision making, but for a larger melody, try singing the phrase repeatedly and listen to your natural inclination for breaths or pauses.
  • It can also be helpful to look for spots in which the rhythm slows naturally.
• Choose a cadence to complete your phrase.
  • Refer to Unit 7c to review the types of cadences.
• Create the rest of the diatonic progression beginning on tonic and ending with your cadence. (If not already provided.)
  • Beginning on tonic will establish your key center. Refer to Unit 6b for a review of the three primary harmonic functions: tonic, dominant, and pre-dominant.
  • Refer to Unit 7a to determine a functional harmonic progression.
• Compose a bass line based on your harmonization.
  • This will resemble 1:1 counterpoint, so refer to Unit 5b.
  • It is okay for the bass line to be more disjunct than the other voices, so feel free to leave your chords in root position to make doubling simpler.
  • Contrary motion against the soprano line is preferred.
• Fill in the alto and tenor voices.
  • Refer to the guidelines for voicing, range, and doubling in Unit 6c.
• When writing your parts, always strive to have voice-leading that is as smooth as possible by emphasizing stepwise motion.
  • As mentioned above, bass lines are the exception and will often have more leaps, especially when using root-position chords.

Conclusions

The first steps in harmonizing any melody should involve:

1. Developing an ending–which cadences would make this a complete musical phrase?
2. Determine a harmonic rhythm and chords that both works with the melody and fills in the gaps on our way to the cadence.
   • Will you have non-chord tones or are all notes part of the harmonic structure?
   • Will you prolong a certain tonal function such as the dominant harmony, or is it interesting enough to move quickly through your progression?
   • Does your phrase sound convincing when played? If not, restructure your harmony and try again.

Please do not be afraid of failing! Your first attempts will likely sound clunky and unconvincing. This is a normal and important part of the learning process, so rather than be disappointed, try focusing on the parts that you do not like, and then analyze them for errors. You should be able to use the analytical tools that you have developed thus far to find mistakes, and then you can correct those. Iteration is key.

With a four note melody such as this, we have little room for development, so it is easiest to stick with a simple idea. For example, the melody ends on the tonic, so this eliminates a half cadence. The penultimate note is the seventh scale degree, so this eliminates a plagal cadence, leaving us with either an authentic cadence or a deceptive cadence.

To keep this simple, let’s choose a perfect authentic cadence. This locks in the bass line for our last two notes, because we know that a PAC has a root position V and I chords at the end of the phrase. It is hopefully clear that the first pitch should start on the tonic chord to establish the key in our ear, which leaves only the second chord undetermined.

Because the chord that follows our undetermined chord is a dominant chord, it makes sense to use a pre-dominant chord, and the A in the melody would allow for either a ii chord or a IV chord. (If you are struggling to remember the standard diatonic chord progressions, please refer to Refer to Unit 7a.)Let’s choose an inverted ii chord to provide some variety.

You now can refer to the handout to see if we met some basic criteria:

• Our chords follow a standard progression.
• It establishes a key and then cadences in that key.
• The lines emphasize smooth voice-leading.

We are now ready to add inner voices, and we can use our voicing and doubling rules from Unit 6b to establish a first chord.

And lastly, we can create the alto and tenor lines while observing the melodic guidelines from the handout.

• Individual lines should create smooth voice-leading using primarily stepwise motion.
• Resolve tendency tones as we studied in our voice-leading discussions (Unit 6b.)

Leading to…

Of note, you may have tried to jump to a D for the first beat of the second measure in the tenor line, but this creates an unnecessarily disjunct tenor part. As we studied in Unit 6b, the chordal fifth can be ommitted on a seventh chord if the root is doubled.

Therefore, if we use only the tools that we have developed thus far in the course, we can already create a simple four-part chorale.