Just what I was thinking: “You can’t have too many non-chord tones if you have big enough chords!”. But this video is primarily in the context of common-practice harmony, not jazz or late Scriabin (which I’ve been trying to get my head around recently) or Ligeti. And in the context of classical four-part harmony this is all really good practical advice about balance and restraint rather than just throwing the kitchen sink at everything.
Apart from the valuable music theory lesson, I liked the first example played in slow though, the cluster of notes created an interesting sound texture. But it would probably sound even better with well planned chromatic notes or chords instead.
...lol, "Crackey! What's that?!?" -- Thank you for this and all your videos, Mr. Green. And for making me laugh with that remark. ;) David (St. Louis, MO USA)
I imagine it also depends on the orchestration. If there are strong wind instruments in the outer parts, busy inner parts on violins and violas might be OK. Though I think some of the bass line needs to be shared, with some instruments helping spell out the harmonic pattern, possibly at an octave below and others playing passing notes.
Your video is about arch-classic voice-leading Yesterday I was sight-reading El Albaïcin; with, as you know, my mental Harmonic Analysis module ON, but there are so many rubbings and double alterations and two-hand-tricks in Albeniz that it becomes a matter of non-chord tones, or of fast-moving, hat-trick harmony.
harmonic rhythm is the thing i am most interested in when i improvise. i feel like a strong melody can set me on a path where the harmonic rhythm makes playing feel like talking.
