Harmony for Composers: Functional Harmony and Voice Leading
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- 🎵 Unlock the Secrets of the Major Scale and Functional Harmony for Composers! 🎵
In this video, we dive into the fundamentals of the major scale and functional harmony, where you'll learn how to find diatonic triads and how to use them to create effective chord progressions. Whether you're just starting out or brushing up on the basics, understanding the major scale and the role of functional harmony is essential for writing music that resonates.
⏯️ Watch the entire playlist here: • Harmony for Composers
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By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to:
1. Find Diatonic Chords: Identify the triads built on each scale degree of the major scale.
2. Understand Functional Harmony: Discover how chords function in a progression and how to use them to build strong harmonic movement.
3. Master Basic Voice Leading: Learn how to smoothly connect chords while avoiding common errors.
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This is the first part of my "Harmony for Composers" series, where we start with the building blocks of music and gradually move into more advanced techniques like seventh chords, modal harmony, and chromatic mediants. Whether you’re composing for orchestra, film, or songwriting, this series will help you elevate your harmonic language.
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criminally underrated channel
I just saw the Studio Ghibli videos and little did I know, it was the tip of the iceberg. I know I'll keep coming for reference until I learn this by heart.
So true, this channel is amazing.
Such a typical channel where you just are so glad you found it and nobody else knows 😅😅😂
I like how most things anyone needs to know about Functional harmony can be explained in about 15 minutes.
Looking forward to part 2: beyond functional harmony. ;-)
Lot of thanks for this series!
💛🙏🙂
the best music theory channel ever.
You made this video at a time when I'm finally ready to understand what's happening. I just came from Ghibli Part 1. Please keep these midi music theory videos going! We all appreciate you!
Please make more of these! This video is a gem. Many thanks!
Will do! Glad it's helpful :)
Incredibly clear explanation. This was very helpful. Thank you!
So useful!! Thank you so much!!
The first channel I've found which presents things in a way I can understand. Thank you so much :)
Isn't B diminished a dominant triad? 6:05
Fantastic Question! The diminished triad is a bit of a weird chord. There's some argument about whether it's a dominant or subdominant, and it's frequently used interchangeably. For example, in major keys it's often considered a dominant, but in minor keys it's frequently considered a subdominant. I decided not to tackle it in this video, since it doesn't have THAT big of an impact on the "strong-weak" approach we cover together. However if you're interested in learning more, I recommend reading "Reharmonization Techniques" by Randy felts! It's a great book and I learned a lot about harmony from it :)
Nice video! Its nice to see your video about harmony..
Thanks for this video series! Your the goat man
Thanks, Tommy!
Wow, you're channel is so awesome! I really like your way of explaining the voice leadings... and the demonstration with the daw is so fun to watch and also helps to understand it better. I've always wanted to know how composers design such beautiful chord shapes and changes even with relatively simple progressions. Looking forward to all the videos in the series
Thank you so much! These videos are so helpful you have no clue. Thank you so much🥰
It's my pleasure! I'm grateful to know that they're being helpful :)
This is cool! I wonder how many parts are there in the series? I hope chord substitutions and borrowed chords and whatnot are covered as I just started learning and got confused real fast. Anyway still looking forward to the upcoming videos :D
Thanks! I've got about 10 topics I want to cover, but don't know just how many videos I'll need to get to them all. Substitutions and borrowed chords are both in the plan :) hopefully they help!
Awesome video. Thank you for explaining voice leading.
Thanks for this incredible wisdom. You are a great teacher!
glad to help, Francis :)
This is great, really looking forward to the next videos in this series. Hopefully you'll cover minor keys and modes as well?
Thanks, Col! That's the plan! I've actually already covered minor keys though. It's my "ghibli chords Part 2" video, if you're interested :)
@@TableTopComposer That's great! Thanks, I'll check that video out :)
I'd love you to cover ways to do harmony a bit differently, other than just by sticking to the 'rules'.......I want to learn how to create harmonies in different ways so that my harmonies stand out.
That's part of the plan :) I want to cover the basics first, but then we'll start exploring non-functional harmony.
Best teaching..... Thanks
Great lesson!
Great! Needed this🙂
I'm glad! Hopefully the rest of the videos will be helpful as well! :)
the diminished 7th chord is Dominiant. infact it is a rootless dominant 7th
Thanks for the feedback :) the tritone in the vii dim has traditionally meant it is treated as a dominant chord, but more contemporary techniques have seen it used increasingly as a subdominant functioning chord as well (auxiliary diminished, and passing diminished in particular) Either way it didn't impact the "strong-weak" strategy I was going for in this video so I just picked one. Probably should have mentioned both, but I'll tackle that in the next series on harmony :)
hella yea keep on going man you're awesome
I don't really understand the staff thing which u write notes on but was happy to hear them and see how they work in daw
Thanks for doing that
Its much more ezier to understand it in daw
I'm glad it helped!
Did you ever do one of these for minor keys?
Yooooooo so good!
Best of the best....thanks
dude wtf, this is amazing
I found this video helpful, but I didn't understand anything about step 3 voice leading, it would be good to see a demonstration on the piano roll to see what that all meant.
No problem! Stop by my live stream this Friday and I'll teach a quick crash-course on voice leading :)
Thank you!
11:50 can you tell me why did you move the c from c maj up an octave instead of bringing the c from fmaj down an octave ?
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, is this better to have bass line with leaps or create stepwise motion using inversion etc?!
Which one is common these days among composers?! And isn't a problem in orchestra if we have a bass line without stepwise motion?!
Excellent question! I actually have a video later in this series that tackles bassline in depth. This video just sticks to root notes for simplicity, since the focus is on functional harmony and chords:)
@@TableTopComposer thank you.
So should I use inversion as least as possible to maintain Harmonic function and true nature of harmony ?!
Is the next link, what you mentioned?!
th-cam.com/users/live00keo7AyfPE?si=KA5J3F6q7CXFThOr
@alirezayousefirad you're more than welcome to use inversions as much as you'd like! I just recommend using roots as your default, if you're not focused on creating more dynamic basslines.
And this is the one you want :)
th-cam.com/video/HJoS27NLv8o/w-d-xo.htmlsi=nwVS5u__32P1hrmS
@@TableTopComposerthanks
@@alirezayousefirad happy to help :)
What software are you using?
(I like your software, it looks cool)
I use cubase, it's my favorite DAW to work with :)
@@TableTopComposer Thanks!
@@TableTopComposer It is free?
@@tonythanhan9438 unfortunately not, it can be quite expensive actually. however, I believe protocols may have a free version bod theirs. At least they did a few years back
🔥🔥
Glad i found you 😂
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This is a Wonderful Explanatory Video but How Does One learn to truly understand Chordal Harmony Without Notation on a Music Grand Staff? I don't understand using a Synthesizer Grid for illustration what you just discussed so Brilliantly? Please explain, Thanks.
I could be wrong, but trying to teach functional harmony and voice leading to people who just learned the notes of the C major scale seems a bit of a leap.
it says this video is for composers u cant be a composer if u only know the major scale
When I don’t figure out an explanation I say it is a .... hummm ... borrowed chord
Am I the only one for whom traditional music theory means absolutely nothing? What I mean is, for me, music is exclusively a sensual and emotional experience. Plotting out how chords work together mathematically doesn’t tell me anything about how to write songs.
To me it’s like teaching someone how to cook by only explaining the molecular structure of the ingredients. It just doesn’t work for me.
I wish there was another way of learning music!!!
You're not the only one :)
there are plenty of different approaches to writing music. Theory isn't about setting rules but sharing observations and patterns. You may benefit from learning more about "chord relationships" which is a relatively new approach to theory that groups chords based on their commonly perceived emotional characteristics (very popular in film scoring). I've got an older video about it at the link below. The featured video on my channel might also be interesting to you, as it focuses on taking an "emotions first" approach to music. I hope they help!
th-cam.com/video/ZJDDwB7aZ3U/w-d-xo.html
Am I the only one for whom traditional music theory means absolutely nothing? What I mean is, for me, music is exclusively a sensual and emotional experience. Plotting out how chords work together mathematically doesn’t tell me anything about how to write songs.
To me it’s like teaching someone how to cook by only explaining the molecular structure of the ingredients. It just doesn’t work for me.
I wish there was another way of learning music!!!