I'm a self-taught-ish musician, but played for a long time in a band where the other guys had at least musical college in their background. It's not a problem for me to harmonize in the Bach style now, but it was so nice to see the clear demonstration and logical approach without the fog of reflections on the complexity of choral harmonization. Liked, subscribed, waiting for the next episodes
Wonderful! I'm a bit rusty as you can tell from the video, because I rarely harmonize in Bach's style these days. You'll be happy to hear that I'm working on the last video in the series now - on taking the four-part harmony and turning it into a full orchestral piece.
Thank you very much! Let me know if there are improvements I could make, or additional topics that you feel I could cover. I have a few ideas in mind, but I'm always open to suggestions!
That's exactly what I do. I look up some random chorale by Bach (I avoid the bigger ones, with more than 4 cadences). I do my best to avoid looking at the bass line and inner voices then I copy the melody. After that I do my own harmonization and when I finish I compare my version with Bach's version. Very rarely I feel like I did better than him. lol But it's ok, I'm still learning. I like 4 four-part harmony. It's simple, but that's the beauty of it. You can play awesome chord progressions using just four notes and feels great to listen to it. Those passing tones, suspensions, diminish chords, good stuff. I feel at home with this sonority. I don't enjoy the post modern stuff like Jacob Collier. People say he's a genius, but I don't know. I don't share this feeling. What I don't like is how composers like Jacob deviate from some good norms. Norms like preparing dissonances and resolving then. He's all over the place playing bad sequences of notes just for the saking of "breaking rules". That's ok, but his music ends up sounding awful.
I love that approach - that's basically how I learned counterpoint! However, I also like a lot of the music that I've heard from Jacob Collier. If you don't like his music, you probably wouldn't like some of my modern classical music, which is generally considerably more dissonant than his!
Hey! I'm loving your series and I just have a quick heads up....... When you show the bach compilation book on amazon there's your shipping address partialy shown on screen! Make shure to blur it out to keep your information and personal details private! I think the youtube built in editor can blur a section of the screen without taking the video down 👍
Thanks! Actually, I purposely chose an address that was nowhere near where I live in order to show that screen. But that would absolutely be something silly that I would do. I appreciate your concern!
Thank you for the playlist, the videos are great, I feel like I'm learning a lot. This demo left me wondering about something however. Although we are in a minor key when it comes to the Dominant(in this demonstration) we always raise the 7th. I understand the point being the stronger pull into the 1st degree of the scale. However is it common practice to always use the Harmonic Minor to harmonize? I thought it would be something we do in cadences or when the following chord contains the 1st degree of the scale. Is the (v) not used at all or rare in harmonization?
Do you mean we always raise the 7th of the main minor key (the third of the dominant)? In common practice harmony, any dominant chord leading to the tonic would indeed be a major chord - thus V, not v. A perfect cadence is always V-I (or V-i). In film music, modal music (such as early 20th Century British music) and popular music you will often hear a minor v chord leading to the tonic, though.
@@EricGalluzzo Yes thats precisely what I meant. It's great to know that v-I could still be used in a more modern approach. But is that practice of the raised 7th still the case in a Deceptive cadence for example? Or when we are in the middle of the phrase? Thank you for clearing this fog.
Yes it is - reduced to four-part harmony. 🙂 Well spotted! It was one of the examples I used in the first video about why composers should learn four-part harmony.
