Finally, the surely much awaited lesson has arrived; this week and the last I have been auditioning at various colleges. Sorry for the delay, but I do plan to keep up a one-lesson-per-week average if I can!
CHROMATIC HARMONY
Harmonic Function
(I am posting some review in case you aren't used to looking at harmony this generally. If you understand all of this just ignore it
. Tomorrow I will describe the voice leading of specific chromatic harmonies... I didn't get there tonight.)
From what I see in your short melody and its accompaniment, you have a fairly good "textbook" knowledge of chords, that is, you can use common chords like I, V, IV, ii, etc... to effectively harmonize a melody. Not to say that your technique is dry or primitive; after all I
did ask for a very simple melody.
And I do not doubt that your understanding of harmony is even deeper than that. I do however want to briefly describe a more general way of viewing harmony that both you and I should be aiming for. Let us begin with with a simple chord, C Major. Let us say this is our tonic chord.
We follow it with a secondary dominant, V/V (D Major).
Then we finally reach V, a simple G Major chord.
So what comes next? Does the ear expect the tonic chord? Actually, you have probably noticed that our I V/V V progression in C Major is also a IV V I progression in G Major. Unless that final G Major chord has a 7th, our ears will be perfectly content to accept it as final.
Thus it makes no difference how we label a G Major chord: it could be V in C Major or c minor, I in G Major, IV in D Major, VII in a minor, VI in b minor, III in e minor, a Neapolitan in f# minor........ the possibilities are endless. And no matter how you choose to label it on paper, you ear may be hearing it as all of those to some very minute degree. It is important to realize that tonality isn't automatically set to D Major when we add two sharps to a key signature; instead the chords we pick will either confirm or reject the tonality. Thus in our D Major, a progression like vi ii vi I will not sound very final and may suggest i iv i III in b minor; a progression like I IV V, we both know, will certainly suggest D Major even if the V never resolves.
Basically what I mean is that any chord lies not in the key you want it in but in the key it wants itself in.
The degree to which a particular key is suggested can be very variable. There is no need to make a clear division between "tonicisations" and "modulations" because there is a gray area between them.
How do we describe the "function" of a chord? Different authors subscribe to different theories and argue over them; the truth, on the other hand, I think lies somewhere between all of them. Thus I think it is useful to keep all of them in mind simultaneously, as they all come into play:
1. The Circle of Fifths. I think you have Kostka and Payne's
Tonal Harmony. They justify progressions as being based off of the circle of fifths:
iii - vi - ii - V - I,
where IV performs much the same function as ii and vii* as V:
iii - vi - [IV ii] - [vii* V] - I
2. Strong versus Weak Progressions. Since Rameau theorists have classified progressions into strong progressions (up or down a fifth, up a second, down a third) which more clearly suggests sequences like
I vi IV ii V I
I iii IV V I
Weak progressions to be avoided are up a third and down a second, ruling out tonally weak progressions like ii - IV or V - IV. (Notice that I can move anywhere, permitting I - iii and I - vii*)
3. Tonic, Dominant and Subdominant Functions. The progression I IV V is very strong and uses every note of the scale: a convenient summary of the entire tonal mechanism! Some authors consider all progressions to be modified I IV V progressions, where the function of IV is fulfilled by IV, ii, and maybe vi; the function of V can be replaced with V or vii*. iii does not clearly fulfill any of these.
All of these viewpoints reveal the inner workings of tonality, but none of them are definite. The circle of fifths must be altered considerably before it fits most music, and it fails to explain plagal cadences and progressions that seem to flow backwards. Many beautiful passages particularly in French, Spanish and Italian music move backward along the circle: I V ii vi V/vi. The weak vs. strong theory fails to allow such beautiful modal passages like one in the Lachrymae Pavan, i III v VII... Tonality is a fluid concept and can be manipulated artfully once we begin to see past "rules" and "progressions."