Frank B asked 8 years ago
still feeling through exercise 3-3-1. I don’t know what is expected of me in this exercise still, if my basic idea includes chords that prolong the tonic function should I include them?
so I chose I | vii dim (woulda done full without the tonic at the top so it pulled to the tonic note of vi but alas, chromaticism :/) | vi | vi64
would you like me to include the harmonic content in a way that is reflective of the chord change (like V/V type stuff, I really doubt it now that I said it but I just wanna make sure) or use the method you showed us in the lesson to convert the melodic content to fit the newly laid out harmonic content?
Jon Brantingham Staff answered 8 years ago
Generally you want modify the melody to fit the new harmony.
In your case, you could do a progression such as:
I – viiº | vi – vi6/4 | IV – viiº/IV | ii – V | …
This would allow you a little chromaticism, and the ability to take it back to I for the continuation.
If you want to keep things completely diatonic, you could do:
I – V6 | vi – vi6/4 | IV – I6 | ii – V | …
This makes it a purely diatonic progression, but still generally feels the same.
It is important to realize you have a lot of control over things. When there is an exact repetition, it generally means the harmonic material doesn’t change, but obviously you want it to make musical-logical sense, and generally you don’t want to violate expectations of functional harmony. If something doesn’t sound right to your ears and sensibility – then change it.
If you have written a basic idea, and then you transpose it to a new key area (say IV), then you can keep the tonic relationships (the first example) or make it diatonic (the 2nd).