Controlling Harmony

Write the progression out, then check the result against its bass line and inversions.

Related

Borrowed ChordModulationPivot Chord

The problem

Ask for a sadder harmony and you get a vague minor colour. Harmony is the dimension models average away most readily. The result often sounds correct yet wrong, moving somewhere other than the brief, and the lift you wanted never arrives.

How it works

Control depends on the path. Symbolic tools edit notes directly, so chords, inversions and bass can be fixed. Audio tools work through prompts, references or later separation, and the model drifts back toward common functional progressions. What both paths share is the bass as evidence, since inversions and passing motion are written there. Beyond functional harmony the model has little sense of chromatic passing notes, suspensions or a moving bass line, so state them or they will not appear. Get the bass right and the skeleton is right.

Practice

Write a chord chart of four to eight bars, in roman numerals or chord names, stating how many chords fall in each bar. Name the key a borrowed chord comes from, for instance F minor inside C major, and for a modulation state the bar and the chord that carries you there. On the MIDI path, edit the notes. On the audio path, put the chart into the prompt and use the bass and sustained notes as references. Then compare bar by bar, checking first whether the bass lands on the expected root, then the third and seventh, and only then the colour. Regenerate in sections where it fails rather than starting the whole piece again. Keep the chart as plain text beside the audio so the next revision has something to check against.

What to listen for

In Vitali's Chaconne, how the harmony changes over one repeating bass; in the Folia, the fixed progression checked bar by bar; in Tristan, how the delayed resolution lets the key drift; in Handel's Chaconne, the major-key ground set against the former. When the bass agrees, the harmony is mostly right; when it fails, suspect a section boundary before suspecting the model.

Sources

• 和声进行的标注方式，依和声学通识核对，未抄文本
• 音频与符号两类生成路径的差异，依公开工具说明归纳，未抄原文

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.