Harmony and Chords Recording Project

Posted on by sleduc

 

Creative Commons image Another Guitar Pic by Lemuel Cantos at Flickr

Goal

  • Convey knowledge of harmony terms and concepts and use this knowledge to build harmonies in GarageBand

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse “Gallopin’ Gertie”

Musician Explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty

Harmony Terms

  • Drone
  • Harmonics
  • Triad
  • Polyphony
  • Progression
  • Tonic
  • Dominant
  • Passimezzo Antico
  • Passimezzo Moderno
  • Dischord
  • Dissonance
  • Passing Notes
  • Suspended Notes
  • 7th Chords
  • Diminished Chords
  • Augmented Chords

Product

  • Create a blog post with embedded media from SoundCloud, YouTube, and Flickr of harmonies.

Examples

C Major Notes and Chords

c_major_notes

 

I ii iii IV V vi vii
C MAJOR D min E min F MAJOR G MAJOR A MINOR B dim
Tonic Supertonic Mediant Subdominant Dominant Submediant Leading Tone

Steps

  • Day 1 – Create Blog Post, Add Section Headings, and Define Terms
  • Day 2 – Watch GarageBand Tutorial for Chords and Harmony
  • Day 3 – Examine One of Your Favorite Song’s Harmonies
    • Find for MIDI file of one of your favorite harmonies
    • Include under the One of My Favorite Harmonies heading
      • Find a HookTheory song for the song key and chord structure
        • chord Structure
      • Embed a YouTube video of your favorite harmony
      • Find a .midi file of the harmony and download it
      • Take a screenshot of the harmony tracks in GarageBand, upload to Flickr and embed into your blog
      • Export the two main harmony tracks from GarageBand as an .mp3, upload to SoundCloud and embed into your blog post
      • Describe why you like the harmonies
      • Answer the questions (use compositional terms in your answer):
        • What did you notice about the note structure of the harmony?
        • Where was the tonic note and where are the tension building note(s)/chords(s)?
        • What was revealing?
  • Day 4 to 2nd to Last Day of Project – Create a Theme with Harmony
    • Create a 8 measures theme that has a catchy melody and harmony that builds and releases tension
      • Remember that the note and chord progression should be in C Major.
      • Use the chords that best support you melody line.
      • Feel free to copy and paste the chords and notes from Mr. Le Duc’s note and chord progression sample (GarageBand 10).
      • Have more than one chord in each measure, if you want.
        • The chords should be placed on the beats you want to emphasize.
      • Remember to start on the tonic note/chord (C) and build tension in measures 4 and 5 with the Dominant / Subdominant note/chords (green) and end on the tonic (C) note / chord (red).
        • Click on either image below to see both as a larger PDF file
        • C Major Notes and Chords ChartChord Chart
      • Remember that rising notes suggests happiness and falling notes sadness.
      • Remember that increasing tempo suggests happiness and slowing tempo sadness.
    • Include under the My Harmony heading
      • Take a  screenshot of the chord track notation; uploaded to Flickr and embedded into your blog post
      • Export the theme as an mp3; uploaded to Soundcloud and embedded into your post
      • Answer the questions (use compositional terms in your answer):
        • How did you structure of the harmony?
        • Where is the tonic note and chord and where are the tension building notes and chords?
        • Are you using Contrast, Repetition, and/or Variation? Which measures?
  • Second to Last Day
    • Create What I Learned heading
      • Explain what you learned and at least one problem you overcame
      • Include a link to a tutorial you used and describe how you used it
  • Last Day
    • Present compositional themes

Tools

Resources

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