Harmony for ocarina players
Harmony in music occurs when multiple notes sound at the same time. It is one of the fundamentals of music, creating tension, release, and the ultimate sense of progression. Harmony will be present in most of the music you listen to, as it adds a lot of depth and complexity to the sound.
Yet, it may not be obvious why understanding harmony is helpful to you as an ocarina player, given that the instrument only plays one note at a time. You may be tempted to ignore it, as it may feel irrelevant, but that would be ill-advised.
There is a lot of value in understanding harmony, as:
- It deepens your appreciation of the music you are playing. Melodies and harmony are closely related, and the patterns of harmony are often mirrored by the notes used in a melody.
- It frees your creativity. Understanding harmony allows you to improvise around a melody to make it your own,
- It improves communication. Any time that you play with an accompanist, you are playing in harmony. Knowledge of harmony enables you to understand what they are doing, and communicate effectively.
An understanding of harmony also has various non-obvious applications. For a group of ocarinas playing together, harmonies can be formed from different players playing different notes, and understanding the theory of harmony allows you to understand what the group as a whole is doing.
Harmony ocarinas, while limited, also require an understanding of harmony to play well.
What tools do I need to learn harmony?
To develop an intuitive feel for harmony, you need to hear how different notes sound when played simultaneously. And since ocarinas can only play one note at a time, you will need a different instrument to do so. Harmony ocarinas won't do much to help you, as they are too technically limited to understand the whole topic.
Using another instrument as a learning tool is easier than you may think as all instruments play the same system of notes, and it is not necessary to be able to play an instrument well to gain insights from it. There are a few options:
- MIDI sequencers allow you to play chords by dragging notes on your computer screen, without having to learn another instrument. You can use LMMS, for example, which is free.
- There are also many 'virtual piano' apps for iOS and Android which do the same thing using the touch screen. Some applications allow you to play notes using your computer keyboard.
- Another option is a MIDI keyboard, a standard keyboard which uses your computer to produce sound.
The piano keyboard and similar tools like MIDI sequencers are intuitive, as they have a linear layout, and melodies and harmony are played in the same way. Unless you have a serious intention to learn to play them, I'd generally advise against instruments like the ukulele or the guitar. Their design makes some chords considerably easier to play than others, and the nature of how these instruments are tuned makes the relationships between notes less obvious.
Consonance and dissonance: harmony 101
The most fundamental aspects of harmony are the concepts of consonance and dissonance.
Consonance is when notes played together sound pleasing or 'harmonious', for example:
Dissonance is the opposite: notes that sound unstable, grating or uneasy when played together, for example:
Whether a given collection of notes sounds consonant or dissonant depends on the distance between those notes, called an 'interval'. To hear this for yourself:
- Press a bunch of keys randomly on a piano. The result will almost certainly sound dissonant.
- But if you play two keys that are seven notes apart (including the black keys), they will sound harmonious.
Dissonance is not 'bad'. Rather, consonance and dissonance are flavours that are mixed, depending on the desired sound. Dissonance is an effective tool for creating progression, as the tension it creates can be released by moving into consonance.
The consonance and dissonance of intervals
As you will know from Octaves and scale formation, the distance between any two adjacent chromatic notes is called a 'semitone'. You can continue from this point, forming larger intervals like the whole tone, and they all have distinct sounds.
If you have an instrument, try playing these for yourself. Remember that one semitone correlates to any two adjacent keys on a piano keyboard, inclusive of the black keys, and that you can form these intervals starting from any note.
Just listen to how the different intervals sound, and observe how their sound makes you feel.
The possible intervals within the chromatic scale and their names are presented below.
One semitone (minor second)
The semitone is a generally dissonant interval, and is the smallest interval that most Western instruments can play.
Two semitones (whole tone, major second)
The whole tone is fairly dissonant, but less so than the semitone.
Three semitones (minor third)
As you form intervals using larger distances, they become more consonant. The minor third is somewhere between consonant and dissonant, and sounds somewhat sad.
Four semitones (Major third)
The major third is the first entirely consonant interval, sounding more 'happy'.
Five semitones (perfect forth)
Following the major third is the perfect fourth, which is also harmonious.
Six semitones (tritone)
Following the fourth, six semitones is a very dissonant interval called the 'tritone'. The tritone is an outlier, as it is situated in the middle between the perfect fourth and the perfect fifth (seven semitones), which are both consonant intervals.
Seven semitones (perfect fifth)
The fifth is a very consonant interval.
Eight semitones (minor sixth)
The minor sixth is somewhat less consonant, but not grating to the ear.
Nine semitones (major sixth)
The major sixth (nine semitones) is a consonant interval with a somewhat melancholy characteristic, pleasing in its sound but slightly less consonant than the fifth.
Ten semitones (minor seventh)
The minor seventh is itself quite dissonant, and from this point, the intervals sound progressively more dissonant, until you get to the octave.
Eleven semitones (major seventh)
Twelve semitones (octave)
Notes that are an octave apart are so harmonious that they almost sound the same, the added note more 'changing the colour' of the note, rather than sounding distinct. It is why octaves are considered equivalent in music theory.
Finding the chords of a scale
You can, in principle, build harmonies by playing different notes together, experimenting to find ones that produce the sound you want. However, musicians have already devised a system to make this easier, which are called 'chords'.
Up to this point, we have been exploring the intervals of the chromatic scale. But for chords, we are going to switch to a diatonic scale. We will be using the G major scale for a bit of variation and to demonstrate that the same method applies to any scale:
G, A, B, C, D, E, F♯, G
The diatonic scales are formed from a selection of major and minor intervals. If you think about the intervals within one of these scales, the exact number of semitones between the notes changes depending on where you are within the scale.
You can either be conscious of this, observing the number of semitones, but it is easier if you ignore it for now. Diatonic intervals can just be called 'second', 'third', 'sixth', and whether they are major or minor depends on where they are played within the scale.
Chords are formed from a diatonic scale using the interval of a third. If you begin on G, skip A and land on B, which is a third above G.
Harmony can be formed from two notes in this way, but chords of three notes are more common as they have a richer sound. A three-note chord is called a 'triad'.
To form a G triad, you raise one third from G to B, then another to D. Thus you get the notes G, B, and D.
The chords for the other notes of the scale may be found by following the same pattern. The triads for D, E, and F♯ ascend into the following octave.
Triad types
If you play these chords on an instrument, you'll notice that some of them sound different. This arises from the irregular spacing of the notes within the major scale. The interval of a 'third' within the major scale also changes.
If you take the first chord, the one built from G, and count the number of semitones between the root and third, you'll find there are four. If you then begin from the third and count forward, you'll find that there are three semitones.
As presented in the list of intervals, there are two kinds of thirds: the major third and the minor third. The major third is an interval of four semitones, and the minor third is an interval of three.
Major triads
A chord formed from a major third followed by a minor third is called a 'major triad'.
Minor triads
If you examine the intervals of the second chord of the scale, A, C, E, you will find that the intervals are swapped around. The first interval is a minor third, while the second is a major third. This is called a 'minor triad'.
Diminished triads
The two cases described above cover every triad found in the scale except for one. If you examine the intervals of the F♯ triad, you will find that they follow a pattern of minor third, minor third. This is called a 'diminished triad'.
Augmented triads
You may have realised that there is one last combination of thirds, namely a stack of two major thirds. This is called an 'augmented triad'. These kinds of triads don't occur anywhere within the major scale, and I'm only mentioning this for the sake of completeness. You don't need to understand them for basic harmony.
Chord progressions
The harmony of a melody usually does not stay on only one single chord for a whole song. Just like a melody moves through a series of different pitches, harmony moves through a series of chords, called a 'chord progression'.
The seven chords of the diatonic scale are numbered starting from 1. For G major, these are:
- 1: G Major
- 2: A minor
- 3: B minor
- 4: C Major
- 5: D Major
- 6: E minor
- 7: F♯ diminished
In its simplest form, a chord progression means moving through a sequence of these chords, often repeatedly. For example, the chord progression "1, 4, 5, 1" is found in many mainstream songs.
The chord-five to chord-one resolution is extremely common, as it creates a powerful sense of resolution. The technical term for it is 'authentic cadence'.
If you would like to know more, it is easy to find information about common chord progressions online.
Moving forward
I'd suggest experimenting with the different intervals, building chords from them, and then seeing how they sound. What emotional effect do they have?
As was noted, chords and melodies are closely related. Once you have learned to play some tunes, the next step could be to study this relationship. It is covered on the page Finding the chords in a melody.
