Unit 5: Harmony/Texture
Harmony…2 or more notes that go together nicely; 2 or more pitches sounding at the same time
Harmony doesn’t have to sound pretty (it usually does, but not always). “Going together nicely” just means that a
combination of notes works to create the feeling the composer or performer wants to create. It can be beautiful or
intentionally ugly; it can be soothing or scary; calm or violent; you name it. Composers and performers use
harmony like painters use different textures and colors of paint: to make the point or create the emotion they want
to create. Harmony, therefore, is one of the most powerful Elements of Music—it can be used in wonderful ways
by composers and performers to express what they are thinking or feeling.
Some instruments (like pianos, organs, and guitars) can create harmony alone. Harmony in singing, however,
naturally takes more than one person. One singer can’t sing more than one note at a time! Many instruments
(woodwinds and brass, for example) are the same way. That’s one reason that large ensembles (like choirs,
orchestras, and bands) are so popular: they can create GREAT harmony together!
Harmony feels TERRIFIC! When everyone in the ensemble sings or
plays their part correctly, with right notes, good intonation, and
good tone, the effect can be WONDERFUL! A really good
choir, band, or orchestra performing in perfect harmony can stir
incredible feelings of unity, well-being, and an overwhelming
sense of beauty or sadness or awe or joy or fear (or
ANYTHING!) that few other things in life can. Maybe that’s
why, year after year, more people participate in musical ensembles
in the U.S. than play team sports. Harmony feels FAAAAAAAAANTASTIC (if you get it right! )!
Harmony can be fairly easy to do (just learn your part!) but hard to understand. Many music scholars spend their
entire lives studying it! The types of harmony discussed in this Unit can be hard to figure out, especially if this is
your first time studying harmony. So we’ll try to Keep It Simple; students are simply asked to do the best they can
to understand and remember the definitions and main ideas. In future years, with much more experience in music
study and performance, you’ll understand a lot more about harmony.
We’ll start out with the easy stuff. Our next two terms don’t even mean types of harmony; they actually mean the
lack of it!
Monophonic…………………………….A single unaccompanied melody line. Similar to unison.
“Mono” means “one”; “phony” means “sound” (don’t confuse that with “phoney”, which means “fake”). So
“monophony” simply means “one sound”. Monophony means no harmony at all!
The simplest type of monophony would be one person singing alone. A solo singer with no
accompaniment at all would be monophony. One singer; one sound. Monophony. Easy! A simple
example of monophony would be one person singing “Happy Birthday”.
If two or more people sing or play, but they sing or play exactly the same thing at the same time, it’s still called
monophony (because there’s still just one tune, one rhythm, one set of lyrics, etc.). But because there’s more than
one person, this type of monophony is often called unison.
unison…………Everyone sings or plays exactly the same notes (unified). Similar to
monophony.
As we said, unison isn’t just similar to monophony, it’s a type of monophony. Unison
comes from the same word as united or unity and means pretty much the same thing:
everyone together. A simple example of unison would be several people singing “Happy
Birthday” together. There are several people singing, but they all sing exactly the same thing (we hope!).
Our next term is homophony: a really common type of harmony that’s actually easy to understand but hard to do!
homophonic…………………A melody with supportive harmony
“Homo” means “same”; “phony” means “sound”. So you would think that “homophony” would mean the same as
unison or monophony. But it doesn’t!
The “homo” in homophony refers to the same rhythm and the same words at the same time. But it does NOT
mean the same notes! Homophonic singing is when everyone has the same rhythm and same words at the
same time, but different notes. Sopranos have one note; altos another; tenors another, and basses yet another.
The most common type of homophonic song (and easiest to understand!) is probably a church hymn. Here is a bit
of a well-known song, America the Beautiful, arranged as a hymn:
Sopranos and altos are on the top staff ; tenors and basses are on the bottom staff. Notice that each section
(soprano, alto, tenor, bass) sings the same words and rhythms at the same time, but on different notes.
The sopranos sing the melody (the tune; the part almost everyone knows), while the other three sections sing
supportive harmony underneath. The total effect is BEAUTIFUL (as in, “America, the Beautiful)! It’s
homophony that helps make it beautiful, which is probably what the composer had in mind!
It’s fairly easy for experienced choir singers to do this, but it’s actually the one of hardest kind of harmony to sing.
It’s REALLY hard to sing one note when everyone else around you is singing others! That’s why young choirs
usually stick to other, easier-to-sing types of harmony, like rounds, partner songs, ostinatos, and descants. All
these types of harmony are types of polyphony.
polyphonic…………………Many melodies at once
“Poly” means “many”; “phony” means “sound”; so “polyphony” means “many sounds” at once. It’s kind of the
opposite of monophony. But polyphony doesn’t just mean many sounds at once; it actually means many
melodies (tunes) at once!
The easiest type of polyphony to understand and do is a round (also known as a canon). Everyone sings the same
melody, rhythm, and lyrics. But they DON’T sing them at the same time! If the round is sung with accurate
intonation (“in-tuneness”) and good balance, tone and blend, the result can be really nice harmony!
round…………….….2 or more people singing the same song starting at different times
Here’s part of a well-known round, Brother John (also known as Frere Jacques or Are You Sleeping?).
Just here, Group 1 is about
halfway through the song. At the
same time, Group 2 is starting its
second phrase (line), and Group 3
is just starting at the beginning.
Together, the notes you see make
nice-sounding chords (harmony
events) on each beat (1, 2, 3, and
4) of each measure. Neat!
Because it takes lots of time,
patience, and discipline to learn
how to sing with excellent
intonation , however, the
“harmony” created by kids
singing rounds sometimes isn’t
harmony at all; it’s just noise!
Moreover, sometimes little kids
get the idea that each group is a
team, trying to “beat” (drown out) the others rather than trying to create harmony! So they start shouting instead of
singing, and the whole effect is lost. Not pretty!
When well-trained singers or players perform a round, the harmony can be really cool. Here’s hoping you’ll get to
do that sometime soon!
So a round is a simple kind of polyphony. A partner song is another type of polyphony that’s easy to teach to
young singers.
partner song……………….2 different songs sung at the same time
Good partner songs are hard to find! The music teacher has to find two or three songs that actually have the same
number of measures, meter, tempo, and underlying harmonic structure (that’s complicated; I won’t go into it
here). But once the songs are found, getting kids to sing polyphony with partner songs is fairly easy.
The music teacher just teaches the three songs separately. The melodies (tunes) and lyrics of the songs may be so
different that the kids don’t even notice they are similar in many other ways.
Once the kids know all three songs well, the teacher just says to one group of kids, “You sing the first song,” to
another, “You sing the second song,” and to another, “You sing the third song at the same time!”
Because all the partner songs have the same tempo, meter, and underlying harmony, the melodies create
harmony as they’re sung together. Unfortunately, the kids don’t often hear their own harmony!
Just like with rounds, it takes lots of time, discipline, and patience to learn how to sing with excellent intonation
(“in tune-ness”), and balance and blend. Therefore, the “harmony” created by little kids singing partner songs
sometimes isn’t harmony at all; it’s just noise!
Below is a simple set of partner songs you might have learned as a younger kid, The Bottle Pop Song. Take a look
at it. Notice that all three songs have the same meter (3/4) and tempo (allegro). They all have the same key
signature (one flat, F major), and the same guitar chord pattern (F, F, C7, F). They are all exactly eight measures
long. Therefore, they can be sung as partner songs, and the different melodies will create harmony together.
Partner songs are a simple yet fun way to sing polyphony!
Now that you’re older, maybe you can actually sing this with your class and make it sound terrific! Why not give
it a try!?
Yet a third way to learn to sing polyphony (many tunes at once) is with an ostinato.
ostinato…………………….A repeating musical pattern
Look at the following example. Notice that the alto part is the same measure over and over! That’s a recurring
musical pattern; an ostinato.
It just so happens that the underlying harmony for My Paddle Keen and Bright is the same chord over and over (in
this case, d minor). Therefore, a pattern (ostinato) that uses notes from the d minor chord will always work, and
will create a harmony with the melody.
So the music teacher simply assigns one group to sing the ostinato (“Dip, dip and swing”) over and over, while
everyone else sings the melody. And harmony is created (as long as everyone sings in tune)!
In addition, My Paddle is a round. So one group can sing the ostinato while other groups sing it as a round.
Harmony two ways! Fun!
Many rounds can have ostinatos. Brother John, for example, has one
built in (just like My Paddle does). The last phrase, “Ding, dong,
ding”, makes a great ostinato!
A fourth (relatively) easy way to get some harmony is to add a descant
to a song.
descant…………………….A harmony part higher than the melody
Normally, harmony is lower than the melody. In most homophony, for instance, the sopranos have the melody
(the tune) on top, while the altos, tenors, and basses sing harmony underneath. That usually works well, as the
melody needs to be heard most, and higher notes (the sopranos) are easier to hear than lower notes. That’s just the
way human ears work!
But a neat change is to take just a few good singers and give them a harmony line above the melody (a descant).
Here’s a well-known Christmas carol that often has a descant put to it:
Remember, high voices seem louder to our ears than low voices, and the descant is higher than the melody. So
only a few singers sing the descant, because we don’t want to drown out the melody. Therefore, the descant
sounds high and sweet and slender and, well heavenly (that’s the idea here, get it?). Once again, we use the
Elements of Music (in this case a descant harmony) to help the audience feel the way we want them to feel. Cool,
huh?
So there are four easy-to-do kinds of polyphony (round, partner song, ostinato, descant) that young choirs can
do pretty well. There are lots of other kinds of polyphony that are MUCH more complicated (I could barely begin
to explain them), made famous by composers like G.F. Handel (who wrote The Messiah) and J.S. Bach (who wrote
The Art of the Fugue) ‘way back in the Baroque era (1600-1750). Perhaps you will study them another time.
Their stuff is pretty fun to sing and listen to even if you don’t completely understand it. It must be: millions of
people enjoy listening to and performing Baroque polyphony who don’t even know as much about it as you do
now!
THANKS for learning about harmony, and
Enjoy Your Music-Making! 