Question:
i have to take the melody of silent night and harmonize it..ccan anyone help me?
Answer:
Originally Posted by rkfan4 i have to take the melody of silent night and harmonize it..ccan anyone help me? You can do all kinds of stuff with it. Using some basic rules I learned in my music theory class, you can take the melody, and take it down an octave and move it up a third or fifth, and that should make a pretty harmony. That way, the tonic in the melody stays in the soprano line, and you get some good harmony. I can't remember what it's called when you have the harmony in the soprano line...anyway, yeah. I'm not sure what else you want to do, but that's pretty much the most basic thing I can think to do with it.
Answer:
Are you supposed to use some "rules" of harmonization that you've learned about, or are you just supposed to harmonize however you want?
Are you just supposed to write one line of harmony, or are you supposed to write a full choral style harmony (like SATB)?
Nate
Answer:
i have to take the melody and harmonize it using... I, IV(and inversions) V, and inversions, V742, V9, V10 4 2, V765, and V11 65, and resolve them.
Answer:
You've been asking a heck of a lot of questions like this recently. You're obviously taking some kind of music theory / chord theory class. I suggest you pay more attention in class and / or ask from help from the professor and / or a fellow student who understands the material better than you. Seriously, unless your professor is a total blockhead or your course has been extremely rushed through the early stages, you should be able to at least work your way through the harmonization at a passing competency level. I hate to sound so mean and condescending and stuff, and I understand that music theory just doesn't click for a lot of people, but you're really asking us to do stuff that 1) is slightly akin to helping you cheat on your homework, and 2) is nearly impossible to do effectively over the internet.
Do you have a textbook that you can refer to? You should find some harmonization examples in there that would show you the basic techniques required to set about crafting your own harmonization.
As a general rule of thumb, you should start by adding a bass line. Use the melody notes to determine which chords are likely to be needed at any given point in the song (if it contains a G in the melody in the key of G, it's probably going to need either a I [G] or a IV [C] chord of some kind), then write in a bass line that follows those chords, mostly in root position (bass note is the root note, in other words), but you can use first or second inversions if you want to make a nice walking bass line (a bass line that moves by step instead of by leaps). After you have your bass line written, you should pretty much know what chords you'll have under each melody note, so the only thing left to do is to fill in the extra notes of each chord in the tenor and alto voices. Use the guidelines you've been given in your class notes / textbook to determine the best way to write these parts in. Don't separate the upper three voices too much (no more than an octave between parts). Don't make excessive leaps in the middle voices. Check for parallel fifths and octaves and find ways to avoid them. Resolve all chordal sevenths and leading tones properly, and in the correct voice. Favor the root, then the fifth, then the third when choosing which note of a chord to double; never double a note with a resolution tendency (that is, a chordal seventh or a leading tone, or a passing tone even). There are many other guidelines such as these, but I really find it hard to imagine that you haven't been given them somewhere.
Oh well.. hope this helps some.
In His love,
Nate
Answer:
i'm not trying to cheat. i get confused in class sometimea and i'm just asking for a little help on how to get started.i'm not asking for anyone to do it for me. i wont be posting here anymore.
Answer:
Originally Posted by rkfan4 i'm not trying to cheat. i get confused in class sometimea and i'm just asking for a little help on how to get started.i'm not asking for anyone to do it for me. i wont be posting here anymore.
No, keep posting and I'll keep trying to help as best I can. It's just that the questions you're asking really are pretty simple things that you ought to be able to pick up at least the basic answers to from your class (the way to start going about trying to harmonize something, for example, surely must have been covered in class). I gave you some guidelines in my post above, see if those help you any.
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If it adds anything to the situation....
I'm a teacher (not of music theory, but of science, but anyway...), and generally what I read in Nate's post looked like there was some truth there (got to remember truth hurts, sometimes), even if it wasn't quite all the way true of your situation.
I've taken theory classes as well, and if you're struggling with where to start harmonizing something, you need to visit with your professor. If you're anxious about doing that, then it would lend support to the idea that you're not catching what you should be from class.
I would reccommend that you pose questions that you get from class a little differently. What you've been doing is just giving us the assignment, just as the prof has given it to you. What you probably should do is to include a few things that you've already tried to do in response to the assignment. Like, I've tried this________________in the bass line, and I was thinking especially about avoiding parallel octaves. Does that make sense...?
Your posts are good - they just (right now) are making it look like you're passing your homework off to us. We want to help you, but we want to see how you've wrestled with the homework as well.
Nate
Answer:
i asked my teacher today and he showed me what i was doing wrong and i understand it now. i didnt mean for it to look like i was asking you to do my homework. because i'm not. sorry for all these threads. i should have asked him in the first place.