Quick question on this Music coursework... harmony exercise...

engstrom0304 · 31 Oct 2011 at 16:14

Hey guys...

Was just wondering if anyone here could answer a questino for me...

Does one chord in the piano accompaniment include the note before the chord... the "um" of um-pa... or is it just the "pa" that you count as the chord.

Thanks

Maccy · 31 Oct 2011 at 16:26

The fact that you've written it that way would assume that it would be part of the chord.

rogan · 31 Oct 2011 at 16:27

just the 'pa' as you call it.

um-pa is just the rhythm the 'um' has no relevance to what chord it is

Maccy · 31 Oct 2011 at 16:50

Technically you're correct, however musically it needs to have some link otherwise there could be some awful dissonance.

p0ss3s3d · 31 Oct 2011 at 16:55

Depending on the progression you could use it to add "additional harmony notes" or "passing notes" or you an use it to create an interesting melodic bass line, to create a contrapuntal idea (think about the inversions you use for maximum effect). It depends on how big the overall score is as well because as the piano part it may just follow the chordal idea and you may have perhaps a contra-bass or something else creating that bass line!!!

So: consider it as part of the chord, but don't be afraid to use non native notes... or of using quavers (or even dotted quaver plus semi-quaver or triplets and so on)... or of adding in those passing tones and additional harmony notes and so on and so on!!!

engstrom0304 · 31 Oct 2011 at 22:01

p0ss3s3d said:
Depending on the progression you could use it to add "additional harmony notes" or "passing notes" or you an use it to create an interesting melodic bass line, to create a contrapuntal idea (think about the inversions you use for maximum effect). It depends on how big the overall score is as well because as the piano part it may just follow the chordal idea and you may have perhaps a contra-bass or something else creating that bass line!!!

So: consider it as part of the chord, but don't be afraid to use non native notes... or of using quavers (or even dotted quaver plus semi-quaver or triplets and so on)... or of adding in those passing tones and additional harmony notes and so on and so on!!!

Ok... btw, this was the beginning, which was already given to me...

Final question then... if i was writing in chord symbols for each chord... would i write chord symbols assuming the note before is part of the chord or not?

Andelusion · 31 Oct 2011 at 22:10

engstrom0304 said:
Final question then... if i was writizg in chord symbols for each chord... would i write chord symbols assuming the note before is part of the chord or not?

It depends, I usually think of 'um-pa' accompaniment parts being simple inversions of a chord, think of the right hand playing a C chord and left hand alternating between a C and G note, technically the first half of the bar would be a C chord, the second half could be C/G (C in the 2nd inversion) or a more complex chord with G as the bass, but to write it as such would be a bit unnecessary and C would suffice until the harmony changed more.

In this instance, the right hand harmony is also changing, so yeah I would include the bass note in the spelling of the chords, Cm, G, Cm, Fm it seems.

engstrom0304 · 31 Oct 2011 at 22:14

Andelusion said:
It depends, I usually think of 'um-pa' accompaniment parts being simple inversions of a chord, think of the right hand playing a C chord and left hand alternating between a C and G note, technically the first half of the bar would be a C chord, the second half could be C/G (C in the 2nd inversion) or a more complex chord with G as the bass, but to write it as such would be a bit unnecessary and C would suffice until the harmony changed more.

In this instance, the right hand harmony is also changing, so yeah I would include the bass note in the spelling of the chords, Cm, G, Cm, Fm it seems.

Thanks Andelusion! Life saver!