Lesson video

Hi, I'm Dr.

Southall, and I'm gonna be teaching you this music unit about harmonic progressions and bass lines.

So let's begin.

In this lesson, we're going to apply triadic harmony to a ground bass.

There's four key terms in this lesson.

The first is triadic harmony, which is a harmony built on thirds, using the root, third and fifth notes of the scale.

Second is chord, two or more notes played together at the same time.

The third term is root, the main note of the chord and the note the chord is named after.

For example, the root note of a C major chord is a C.

And the fourth term is primary chords.

the three main chords in the scale, I, IV, and V.

We'll explain these more as we go throughout the lesson.

Let's begin.

Part one of a two-part lesson is understanding triadic harmony.

So triadic harmony is where three notes are played together to create a triad chord.

If you think about prefix tri, it just means three.

The three notes are the root, which means the first note of the chord, the third and the fifth.

For example, a C chord would be a C, E, and G That's the first, third, and fifth note.

Each key has seven chords.

In the key of C, these chords are: C, D minor, E minor, F, G, A minor, and B diminished.

On a keyboard, these look like this.

So this is the chord of C.

This is the chord of D minor, E minor, F, G, A minor, and B diminished.

You may notice a pattern of how these visually look on the keys that we'll look at in a minute.

We can use this process to work out any chord in the key.

Work out the chord name by counting up the scale.

So we have C, D minor, E minor, F, G, A minor, B diminished, and that's the I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, and vii.

You can also see the uppercase and lowercase with the Roman numerals corresponding to whether it's a major or a minor chord.

Work out the notes of the triad, play the root, miss a note, play the third, miss a note, play the fifth, and that's your chord.

Use the triad pattern to work out the notes of the chord V in the key of C.

Well, it starts on the letter G, the note G, so we're gonna go up in intervals.

We're gonna have G, B, and D.

Hope you got that right.

Using this method, what would be the correct notes for a chord iii? Well, the answer is E, G, B.

iii starts on the E notes, and then we're gonna go up two notes to G and then up two more notes to B.

E, G, B.

There are primary and secondary chords.

The primary chords are more important as they reinforce the key and are used more often.

In a major key, there are three major chords.

These are all represented with the uppercase Roman numerals, so it's C, F, and G.

Secondary chords add variety to a composition but are used less often.

Chord vii is rarely used as it sounds slightly unusual.

And in our example, that's B diminished.

So you'll see these are represented with lowercase Roman numerals.

What are the three primary chords in C? Well, it's those ones that were represented with uppercase Roman numerals, C, F, and G.

True or false? Primary chords are the only chords that you can use, and explain your answer.

It's false.

We can also use secondary chords.

But primary chords are the most important but should be used more frequently than secondary chords, but secondary chords can be used to add variety.

To add triadic harmony to a ground bass, we would usually choose a triad chord where the bass note is part of the chord.

If the ground bass note is A, for example, you would choose any of the chords available to you in that key that have A in them.

For example, that A chord, judging by the name, you think it's got an A in it, it's A, C, E.

Think of the intervals on the keyboard, A, skip out B, C, skip out D, E.

But the D chord also has an A in it.

So if you think of the D chord, you start on D, skip E, F, skip G, A.

And if you think of the F chord, it also has an A in it, F, skip G, A, skip B, C.

F, A, C.

So those three chords are the only three that will have an A in them in this key.

(deep resonant tone) (soft pensive chord) (full grounded harmony) (soft somber chord) (dark unsettled harmony) (firm grounded chord) (rich resonant harmony) (flowing expressive music) True or false? If the bass note is G, we can use chords G, C, and E.

True Well, this is because chord G is gonna be G, B, D, but also chord C is C, E, G, so that's got a G in it as well.

And chord E consists of the notes E, G, B.

So once again, that also has a G in the chord.

Because they all include a G, they are suitable to play with the bass note G.

Using a keyboard, add different triadic harmony to each of the following bass notes.

Consider the different sound and feel depending on the chord you choose.

So there are five notes here: F, G, A, B, C, and I want you to create a chord around each of those notes that adds a triadic harmony.

Now remember, you've got more than one chord available to you for each one.

The most important thing is that it should include the bass note.

So for your first chord, you should have an F in there, but it doesn't have to be the first of the three notes in the chord.

Try a mixture of primary and secondary chords in your composition.

Here are some example chords you could choose from.

So primary chords, you've got C major, C, E, G, F major, F, A, C, and G major, G, B, D.

If you look at the shape of those and the visualization of them on the keyboard, you'll see that they each have an interval of one note between each note in the scale.

Secondary chords, you could have had D minor, D, F, A, E minor, E, G, B, or A minor, A, C, E.

So we asked to play your chords and bass note combinations, and I want you to reflect on which ones you liked the most and why.

And also, we're gonna see a video of an example of these, of the sorts of chords you may have chosen, and I'd like you to decide which in the video you prefer.

(deep emotional music) Well, as personal reflection, you can ask yourself, did you use all bass notes that were part of the chord? Did your chord sound interesting, tense, pleasant, dark, heavy, lights? What sort of vocabulary can you use to describe the chords that you used, each chord individually? And regarding the video, all the chords work with the bass note.

It's mainly primary chords that are used with only one secondary chord, which if you could hear it, it was A minor.

There is added interest as the chords don't always use the root note.

You might say that E minor with the G in the bass and the F with a C in the bass sounds slightly less grounded and add slight tension.

Let's move on to part two, applying triadic harmony to a ground bass.

We can use triadic harmony to add a chord sequence to our ground bass pattern.

If you remember last lesson, we were looking at individual notes to create our ground bass pattern.

What we're looking at now is the ability to turn those notes into triadic harmonies using chords.

Let's have a listen to an example.

(gentle uplifting music) So hopefully it was easy for you to identify there that instead of single notes we were using chords.

What do you notice about the chosen chords in that example? I'll play it one more time.

(gentle uplifting music) Now a combination of being able to hear it and see the notes written down on the slide should help you realize that these chords are a combination of primary chords and secondary chords.

See if you can see which ones are which, if you want to pause the video.

When creating a chord sequence to fit with a ground bass, reinforce the key by starting on the tonic chord.

Use chord V at the end of the pattern to lead back to the start of a pattern.

And use primary chords with some secondary chords, but predominantly primary chords are gonna be your choice.

Repeat chords where necessary.

Not every note has to have a different chord.

It's very tempting to try and mix it up too much just because it's different.

But sometimes having things the same make it sound nicer.

Remember, it usually works best when the bass note is reflected in the chosen chord.

So for example, if the bass note is C, we have those three different choices of chords: C, E, G, F, A, C, and A, C, E, but those choices all contain the note C and C is our bass note.

Similarly, if we look at the bass note of A, you've got three chords, once again.

Not just A minor, which starts with an A, but also F, which has an A in the middle, and D minor, which has an A at the end.

All three chords have the bass note included in them.

Have a quick check for understanding.

What chord should a sequence start on, chord I, IV, or V? Answer is chord I.

Well done.

What chords should the sequence finish on, chord I, IV, or V? Chord V.

Well done.

Which two of these chords work best with an F as the bass note? Answer is b and d.

D minor has D, F, A, and there's an F in there, and F major has an F in it as well, F, A, C.

The other two chords listed do not have an F in them.

Time for some more independent practice.

Create a chord sequence which reflects the notes of your ground bass.

As success criteria, you want to start on chord I, which in our case is C major.

Finish on chord V, which is G major.

Use mainly primary chords, but that doesn't mean you only use primary chords.

You can use some secondary, but the majority should be primary chords.

And you don't have to use the same chord for each bass note, but the chord should include the bass note.

So if you think back to those other examples we've looked at today, as long as the note C, for example, if that's the note that you're using as your bass note, is in the chord, then it will work.

Good luck.

Does the following chord sequence work with this ground bass? So this is basically what you guys have just done, but we're gonna listen to an example for the video.

(gentle uplifting music) Well, here's a model answer and hopefully you've got some similar ideas.

The ground bass starts on chord I and uses mainly primary chords.

The chords work musically with the bass notes.

All chords include the bass note as part of the chord.

The penultimate note uses chord vii, which sounds unusual and it doesn't finish on a G chord.

Okay, that's the end of this lesson.

Well done.

Hopefully you've learned a lot more about how chords can be structured to sound really nice using triadic harmony.

Let's do a quick summary.

So triadic harmony is using triad chords to add harmony to a piece of music.

We work out the triad from the root note of the chord and add the third and the fifth.

There are seven chords in the scale, one for every note.

And the most used chords are the primary chords, which are I, IV, and V.

In the key of C, these are C, F, and G.

We've added triadic harmony to our ground bass pattern using chords which have the bass note as part of the chord.

Hope you enjoyed that lesson.

See you next time.