Download Harmony from the Inside

LABBS Harmony College 2003
Music: Harmony from the Inside
Harmony is both the most obvious and the most problematic element of our style. On the one
hand, it is the most fundmental feature of the style; on the other it often seems to be the most
forbiddingly technical. If we can get ‘inside’ harmonic processes we can both start to make
sense of theoretical concepts, and unlock new possibilities for musical pleasure.
Session outcomes:
- To be able to recognise 3 types of chords:
Triads, Barbershop 7ths, ‘Colour Chords’
- To appreciate their different expressive characteristics
- To enjoy deeper responses to harmony as both singers and listeners
Triads:
Simplest type of chord – 3 notes. Triads are the most stable, clear, open chords. Songs nearly
always end on a triad. Place of rest.
Note: it is still recognisably the same chord, whoever sings which note.
Two types of triad: major & minor. Both have 3-note structure, but they have different
expressive characters: major is brighter, minor more melancholy. (Note that these
associations only work for western classical and popular traditions – other world and folk
musics sometimes have different ‘meanings’ for major and minor)
Difference between Chord and Key:
Chord = individual sonority
Key = overall sense of ‘home’
Barbershop Sevenths:
Only barbershoppers call them this! (Others call them: dominant sevenths or major-minor
sevenths.) Like a major triad, but with an extra note on top. Called ‘7th chord’ because of
number of steps between root and the top note.
There are different types of 7th, like there are different types of triad, but the barbershop 7th is
important for the character of this style, so treated individually. Contest rules require 33% of
a song by duration to be barbershop sevenths if it is to count as stylistic; another rule states
that major triads and barbershop 7ths must ‘predominate.’ So if you want to sound stylistic,
you need to be able identify and relish barbershop 7ths.
Colour chords:
Catch-all term for pretty much everything else in the barbershop chord vocabulary. You
don’t have to be able to classify each different type to recognise that each has its own special
expressive flavour that colours the music. Ask yourself: what does the feel of this chord tell
us about how the composer and/or arranger perceived the meaning of this part of the song?
Liz Garnett, July 2003