• How to Harmonize Melodies to Create Full-Sounding Songs Part 2

    (Part two of a two week series on harmonizing melodies. Click here for last week’s lesson).     Last week’s lesson generated many questions so before providing answers to the exercises I issued in the last newsletter, I’ll first take some time to address some key thoughts:     Question #1 from student:   Hi […]

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    How to Harmonize Melodies to Create Full-Sounding Songs Part 1

    (Part one of a two week series on harmonizing melodies)       Harmonizing melodies is different than laying chords beneath a melody.   You may have heard of fake books and chord charts where you are given chords to play under various melodies. Jazz standards are usually notated this way.   For example, the […]

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    Harmonizing Melodies

    In this lesson, we will learn how to take a melody and form various chords to accompany it. This is a common technique used especially by musicians who work with choirs.

    For example, if one composed a melody which included the i, iii, iv, vi, vii, and viii tones of a scale, harmonizing this melody would mean playing a chord to accompany every note of the melody (either one chord or a combination of chords). The above melody in C major is…

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