What is Harmony in Music? A Complete Guide

Music consists of three main elements; melody, rhythm, and harmony. The melody and the rhythm make a music piece memorable and easy to recognize.

But harmony elevates the music composition from a simple and repeated creation to innovative work with depth and character.

So what is harmony in music? How can it be created? What are the different types of harmonies?

The answers to all these questions are found in this article, so keep on reading.

What is Harmony in Music?

The definition of harmony is very close to the purpose of music itself. Although the rhythm and melody are the other main components of any music creation, harmony represents the core or soul of music.

Harmony is the composite product when individual music notes or melodies are played.

These notes could be human voices or instrumental notes played by several instruments in an orchestra. When they’re played at the same time, they create one concept; harmony.

This means that harmony is the product that occurs when more than one note is played or sung at the same time. It can be an interval or dyad of two notes or a chord made of three or more notes.

While melodies refer to notes progressing horizontally or right after each other, harmony refers to notes stacked on top of each other.

In melodies, a player or a singer progresses from one note to another by moving smoothly or roughly.

In harmony, several different or similar notes are played at the same time. This can be a group of pitches, tones, or frequencies that complement each other and add depth to the music.

If the components of music are divided into vertical and horizontal elements, melody and rhythm are considered to be horizontal elements, while harmony is considered to be a vertical element.

Harmony also has a horizontal aspect as the musician creates a harmonic sound and joins the notes through succession to give the music its personality.

Harmonies that are based on consonance or symmetry make sounds more pleasant and deliver a more significant impact on the audience. Harmonies that are based on differences create confusion and tension.

For this reason, the study of harmony focuses on the study of chords, how they’re made, and chord progression.

In general, the concept of harmony is relatively new in music composition. The western definition of harmony in music doesn’t apply to most types of folk and primitive music that has prevailed in different types of the world for centuries.

What is the Function of Harmony in Music?

Harmony adds depth and value to a chord progression. It adds the needed meaning or emotion to linear vocal or instrumental tones that an earlier version of the music composition lacked.

The main function of harmony is to add value to the chords. In tonal music, there’s a key note. Harmony creates an orderly way that allows you to move from and to this note.

Harmony is made of more than one pitch, thus incorporating them in a single musical composition.

Therefore the primary function of harmony is to create this relationship between different pitches. The connection can be harmonious or not, depending on how the chords are arranged.

What is the Difference Between Melody and Harmony?

Both melody and harmony are based on the 12 pitches of western music. A melody in the key of C major will use all the notes from the C major scale. Harmony will be built using the notes that surround the notes of the C major scale.

A melody is a distinctive component that makes a musical composition or song easy to recognize and remember. When this melody is played on multiple octaves or scales, it creates harmony.

This means that harmony needs to be built on a pre-existing melody. A melody is a primary element in musical composition that is later complemented with harmony and rhythm.

Melodies can be complex or straightforward, but harmony adds more depth to the music or song. The different use of chords across multiple scales can make the music sound pleasant or dramatic.

What is Harmonization in Music?

Harmonization refers to the way music accompanies a line or a melody. A harmonized scale can be made using any note to act as a root note for a chord.

Reharmonization or substitution is another concept that makes music more interesting. It focuses on taking an existing melody and altering the harmony to give the music more depth.

It alters the chord progression, rather than a single chord to make the song more complex or jazzy. It’s the right way to create a new version of a song that already exists.

It can be used to add a new section to the music composition. Reharmonization usually involves a melodic line and not a single note.

In some cases, musicians use reharmonization to alter the nature of a tune. This happens when an existing melody is inserted into a new chord progression to make the tune sound different, eventually changing its genre or concept.

What are Harmony Textures?

These refer to how harmonies combine to add depth to a musical composition.

Implied Harmony

Monophony or a single melody can have implied harmony if you can hear the chords that should go with it once you play it in your head. This is directly related to the way the notes are arranged in the melody or the musical instrument used to play these notes.

In some cases, some melodies don’t have implied harmony. This means that finding the right chords or harmony to accompany the melody can be a challenging task.

Melodies in Avant-Garde music or traditional Folk music that don’t follow the rules of western music belong to this type. Native American music implies little or no accompaniment.

Homophony is a combination of notes, where one line is the melody. The rest of the notes represent the harmony which adds texture and personality to the musical composition.

A polyphony is another combination of notes, where more than one line represents the melody. All the lines are equal in importance, and other notes represent harmony.

Parallel Harmony

Parallel harmony or harmonic planing is another reharmonization technique that involves the movement of two or more lines or a series of chords within the same structure. Each note rises or falls within the same interval.

Harmonic planing is used by arrangers to change the prevailing harmony in a musical progression. In most cases, it’s done as an improvisation technique.

Drones

This refers to a note that rarely or never changes while playing a musical composition. Indian Classical music usually depends on drones to create harmony and add texture.

What are Consonance and Dissonance?

The concepts of consonance and dissonance show the relationship between stability or consonance and tension or dissonance.

The combination of notes or tones played or sung together produces an effect of tranquillity or clash, and the movement between these two concepts differs from one musical style to another.

The sense, direction, shape, and intensity of the harmonic tension gives the music its personality.

Music composers have used both consonant and dissonant chords, alone or combined, to give their music piece a personality and add emotions that the audience can relate to when the music is played.

The music moves from consonant to dissonant harmonies or from simple to more complex ratios to create more depth.

The study of consonant and dissonant harmonies was used to explain the impact music had on different emotions. It showed how the movement from pleasant and rather expected tones evoked different feelings compared to clashing and unexpected sounds.

Consonance

When intervals and chords tempt listeners to feel happy feelings that trigger calmness and rest, these harmonies are considered to be consonant. The intervals are in unison, where two people play the same note.

Perfect G – D or G – C major octaves and minor F – A or F – Ab are considered to be interval consonants. Consonant harmonies can also be the compound versions of these intervals. Consonant harmonies refer to the normal range of tone combinations.

In most cases, music composers start and end their music compositions with consonant intervals and chords because they feel good and relaxed.

However, some genres are different, like jazz and film scores, where musicians usually prefer to use dissonant chords that add more depth and character.

Dissonance

Intervals and chords that produce tension or movement are considered to be dissonant harmonies. These intervals trigger emotions and feel like they need to go somewhere, creating strong emotions and feelings.

Major and minor 2nds C-D or C-Db, and major and minor B- A or B – A#, and even their compound intervals are considered dissonant.

In most cases, a music composer will use dissonant chords and intervals between consonant ones to give them more character. They are rarely used for too long because they tend to be less stable.

These tunes trigger emotions of restlessness, so a dissonant chord resolves a consonant chord. When used too often, the music might be too triggering or less harmonized.

Compared to consonance, dissonance represents a more profound element of harmony because it creates the character of the musical composition. For this reason, without dissonant harmonies, music would be static.

However, the overuse of dissonance would cause confusion and excessive tension that eliminates the smoothness of the music.

For this reason, most composers are convinced that the logical manner to create music would be to create a continuous musical flow that continuously alters between consonant and dissonant harmonies or between relaxation and tension.

What are Close and Open Harmonies?

This refers to how chords are written in a music sheet or played by a musician.

Close Harmony

In a close harmony, the notes that make up the harmony are close to each other. They’re arranged within a narrow range. The interval between the top and bottom notes is usually equal to or slightly exceeds a single octave.

Since the tones are close to each other, there’s little space between them. Close harmonies can be used with instrumental and vocal chords.

Tones or voices in close harmony trigger an emotional response because they remind us of a primal feeling that resonates with all of us.

Close harmony is close to the sounds of nature that complement each other and intertwine to create a composition that we can feel and understand.

Close harmonies can be made of two, three, or more voices or tones, and when done right, the harmony is exceptional. This is why this technique is quite common in church choirs and other forms of religious music from all cultures.

The combination of two or more different frequencies, with various intervals, triggers mixed feelings from happiness to sadness based on how the tones are arranged.

Close harmonies show how tunes or voices can complete one big picture by identifying the smallest details between the notes.

Choir uses close harmonies to emphasize emotions that can only be felt when tones or voices are constructed within this close range. In this close harmony, the dissonance is exquisite.

This technique is widely used in religious music because it evokes emotions. This is why close harmonies are quite common in Gospel music.

The Platters used close harmonies in their famous “Only You,” setting up the scene for several Blues and Rhythm bands to use the same technique in creating their music.

En Vogue used a more contemporary version of close harmonies in their hit “Hold On,” which is a clear example of the New Jazz Swing genre.

Open Harmony

The harmony is made of notes that are placed away from each other. The range is wide, and the tone spans over several octaves, where the interval between the top and bottom notes is relatively big.

Just like close harmonies, open harmonies can be instrumental or vocal. In general, the three top notes belong to an octave, while the other notes in the arrangement belong to another.

The notes in open harmonies are more versatile and bolder, so they represent a key component of modern genres that became popular in the second half of the twentieth century.

The Beach Boys’ “I Get Around” is a clear example of how different melodies that show a sense of experimentation and boldness can add to the overall texture of the music.

Being classified as a song that belongs to the Surf Vocal genre, the tones of this song show feelings of freedom and breaking from the norms.

Open harmonies also became a staple in progressive music genres like Progressive Rock, where “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen represents one of the most popular examples of how open harmonies are built and utilized.

Close and Open Harmonies in Instrumental Music

In contemporary musical composition, composers usually combine both close and open melodies to create an intriguing piece.

However, some musicians like Maurice Ravel used close harmonies more than his contemporaries. The technique is obvious in some genres like Jazz music.

Moonlight Serenade is a clear example of how close harmonies are employed to make a distinctive sound, all within a single octave.

The idea set the foundation of what is known as Miller Sound, which became the signature theme of Glenn Miller’s music.

Block Harmony

This refers to how the music is performed on an organ, piano, or keyboard. In block harmony, close position chords are added below the melody and are played using the right hand. At the same time, the left hand doubles the music an octave lower.

In open harmony, the middle note of the chord is played on a lower octave to create an open space in the chord. With a broader pitch arrangement, the harmonic range is more noticeable.

The locked hand style to play block chords is a technique invented by George Shearing. To master this technique, the pianist needs to put their hands close to each other and move them in the same direction.

What are the Different Types of Harmony?

Harmony takes many forms. There are three main forms that play a key role in western music.

Diatonic Harmony

In this type of harmony, all the notes and chords go back to the master scale. You can tell the key signature by checking the list of sharps and flats that begin at the beginning of each system in the musical notation.

Diatonic harmony is the oldest and most used type of harmony. It can be found in old Greek music, which set the foundation for Western music. It’s also common in contemporary pop hits.

Non-Diatonic Harmony

The work of Johann Sebastian Bach represented the first attempt at incorporating non-diatonic harmony in music. However, this concept continued to evolve throughout the years, creating music that had more character and sounded more impulsive.

Non-diatonic harmony introduces unfamiliar notes that aren’t part of the master scale. This is the kind of harmony that is popular in Jazz and Blues, but it also appears in different music genres. In “In Somebody to Love” by Queen, non-diatonic harmony is apparent.

Atonal Harmony

This type of harmony doesn’t have a tonal center. The work of Arnold Schoenberg represented a clear representation of this concept.

His music was neither built on a major or minor scale and instead employed all the twelve pitches of western music. This concept broke away from the norms, and was the foundation of other movements like the Free Jazz movement used by famous Jazz musicians like Don Cherry.

How Did Harmony Evolve in Music?

Before the Medieval ages, there’s very little evidence that harmony was considered to be part of the music.

Although ancient Greek music was made of melodies sung or played in unison, the term of harmony wasn’t precise or popular. In a way, harmony referred to the succession or progression of tones within an octave or what we identify today as a scale.

By the ninth century, including a harmonizing voice in religious music added more emphasis and made emotions more evident. In most cases, the vocal melody was parallel to the instrumental melody played by one instrument.

In the late Middle ages and the beginning of the Renaissance era, polyphonic music became popular, and music composers tried to break free from the norms of Greek music.

Within a short period, harmonies went through more diversity as more harmonic lines were added to create melodic independence. In most cases, melody moved in opposite directions to create more depth, in a style known as Free Organum.

This technique was characterized by the use of consonant harmonies which implied the resolution of tension.

In between these consonant harmonies, dissonant harmonies were added to create more tension. Free Organum represented the foundation of Western Harmony.

During the fifteenth century, musicians became aware of tonality, a concept that involves the development of music composition with a definite keynote that serves as the point of arrival and departure.

The Middle Ages also represents the beginning of an era where harmony was considered to represent the vertical aspect of music.

Harmony in Renaissance Music

Music became more sophisticated, just like other forms of art. Music composers relied on harmony as the vertical component of music that adds depth and character to a linear progression.

For this purpose, musicians maintained a more positive attitude towards dissonance tones which were more expressive.

Leading Renaissance musicians like Josquin des Prez used dissonance by using four, five, or six-part scoring instead of the older technique of three-part scoring. By using more voices, harmony became richer.

His music was characterized by using dissonant harmonies that resolved to a consonance to create suspension. Suspension later became a popular technique where the expected harmony is delayed until the suspended voice is resolved.

By the end of the sixteenth century, contrapuntal writing became less popular, and music composers depended more on expressive melodic lines. This style was called Monody and didn’t change the harmonic language used.

However, this era marked the extensive use of the bass line upon which other harmonies are built.

Musicians like Claudio Monteverdi created music where the space between the melodic and bass lines was filled with interweaved vocal and instrumental melodies to create a complete composition.

Harmony in Classical Music

The Classical era was characterized by the importance devoted to the definition of several musical concepts and their importance in music composition. These included the concepts of key, modulation, and functional harmony.

A key represented a group of related notes that belonged to a scale. It also described the chords and the relationship between the key notes.

A new system emerged which focused on tonality where the functions moved toward or away from the harmonic goals.

Modulation is another concept that gained popularity. It referred to the change of key and was an essential factor of the music composition because it allowed musicians to explore the listeners’ ability to differentiate between keys.

Functional harmony referred to a system where the chords had assigned goals.

The change in key continued to be a major component in contemporary music composition. For example, in this live performance of “All By Myself” By Celine Dion, the change in key was phenomenal.

By the late seventeenth century, musicians began to use all 24 keys of the chromatic system as they introduced other instruments into their compositions.

Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach is an example of how composers were able to modulate freely from one key to another.

Music composers moved from one chord to another through intense intervals because chords had few notes in common, creating more contrast.

Music composed by Mozart and Haydn was more developed with rapid harmonic movements, from and back to the tonic key.

Harmony In Romantic Music

During the Romantic era, harmony gained more balance and clarity. It was not consistent and broke free from the norms of the Classical period, but it relied more on complicated connections that were clearer and bolder.

You can see these effects in Beethoven’s late work as the opening movement of the Waldstein Sonata, Opus 53. Beethoven constructed his music on a modulation that relied on contrasting keys instead of choosing the standard key in this composition.

The opening movement of the String Quintet in C Major, Opus 163 by Franz Schubert is another example of the powerful and unexpected contrast between tones to create harmony.

During the nineteenth century, chromatic tones that didn’t belong to a scale of a given key and other complex chords were used.

Although they seemed more intriguing to the listener, they managed to add more depth to the music of this era. As a result, Romantic music composers were focused on composing music that relied on concepts of mystery and magic.

Wagner built his music based on the idea of endless melody, which was clear in his creations like Tristan und Isolde.

He switched quickly to a contrasting key to continue music in a new style. Though it marked the late work of Wagner, this technique was not widely accepted during or after his lifetime.

Wagner’s appreciation for complex chords became a dominant component of music composition during the late nineteenth century.

Other musicians like Giuseppe Verdi followed the same concept of changing suddenly to unrelated keys, although he didn’t adopt Wagnerian techniques.