Harmony: How do you teach your students to listen and respond to harmony?

 

A few years ago I was perusing the online index of past articles that had appeared in Keyboard Companion magazine, the “Departments” component of this merged publication. Despite the fact that hundreds of topics had been explored since 1990, I was surprised to discover that not a single article focused on helping students learn how to perceive and respond to harmony. The topic must have come up peripherally in numerous articles, but up to this point there has not yet been an in-depth look at this important aspect of teaching.To remedy this, we are launching this new area of the magazine, the Harmony Department, which will appear on occasion and will be headed up by me and other editors. Since our initial question in this area is a general one, we will devote two issues to it. In the following article, I will share my thoughts on this topic. Other writers will address the same question in our next installment (Nov./Dec. 2010).

I was thinking recently about the first pieces of recorded music that caught my fancy as a six- or seven-year old, when I was a new piano student already spending many hours in my room with my record player listening to 45s. Looking back, all of the pieces had something in common, whether they were in classical, pop, or any other style: juicy, unique harmonies. As a child I didn’t know that specifically, but I do remember being fascinated by something about that music. I have heard early childhood music experts talk about how very young children tend to show an innate preference toward either melody or rhythm, but I have often wondered whether the category of harmony has been overlooked. I am certain that my playing and listening predilections have always favored music that sported interesting harmonies. The pieces that I composed as a youngster had complex and colorful chords (even if they didn’t always make sense!). So I think it’s safe to say that I’ve been a harmony junkie from way back, and it’s been apparent in all aspects of my musical life.

When I first started teaching upperlevel music majors full-time at the university level, I was surprised at what I discovered about their understanding of harmony. Many (but not all) could throw Roman numerals onto a score as part of harmonic analysis with acceptable accuracy. Yet in their playing, those same students were just as likely to bulldoze their way through a dazzling modulation, ignore the resolution of a prominent dissonance, or be insensitive to the return of the tonic after a long dominant pedal-point. In other words, there was a disconnect between what they had learned in their theory classes and how they heard and felt the music they were playing. When I discussed this phenomenon with students, I found that many were open to bridging this gap, but there was also a universal response, said in different ways but communicating the same unfortunate message: “It never occurred to me that what we were covering in theory class had anything to do with how to play.”

I have talked about this problem with colleagues around the country, and it appears to be widespread. With so many pre-college students learning cadence formulas and other chord progressions, and so many university students spending a massive percentage of their freshman and sophomore years in theory classes—courses devoted largely to the study of harmony— how can this be? I don’t pretend to know the complete answer to this question, but I have some thoughts on it.

For educational purposes, most fields tend to break down their subject matter into artificial cubby holes (the field of music and certainly this publication are no exceptions). There are obviously many advantages to doing this, but later, at some point, students must learn how to put all of their knowledge and acquired skills back together. In music, the ideal candidate to lead the way in that synthesis is the studio teacher—possibly the only person who can help see it through. Meetings are usually once a week at the least, and it is in the studio where skills and sensibilities of all kinds—physical, perceptual, emotional, intellectual, spiritual—can mature and merge to create art. Yet, it commonly does not happen. University juries must be passed, degree recitals must be played. At the pre-college level, syllabus exams must be taken, recitals must be prepared, and many teachers are still offering thirtyminute lessons.

Even worse, some students and teachers don’t see a need to make these integrations. A past colleague at a university was struggling with one of her most physically gifted students who was not responding to harmonic and rhythmic events in his music, and thus was also not clearly communicating the structure of the music. She tried all kinds of techniques over several weeks, and finally the student lost his temper at a lesson and yelled, “JUST TELL ME HOW TO PLAY IT!!” I experienced something similar when I was trying to help a piano minor learn how to interpret a Baroque piece that of course had no dynamic markings but had striking harmonic events that pointed the way toward meaningful interpretations. We spent two lessons doing nothing but examining the harmonic structure of that piece and what its emotional implications were. The next day, the student’s primary studio teacher (for her major instrument) showed up at my office door, obviously unhappy. The student had complained to her that we were “spending all our time on just music theory.” I pointed out that the student had no idea how to make musical sense out of the harmonies in the piece and she replied, “I don’t pay much attention to that stuff either, and look at the career I’ve had—it’s never held ME back!” I said something like, “But you’re intuitively able to hear and respond to those events; she can’t yet.” The teacher was not convinced.

Unfortunately, there are still many other teachers and students who are not convinced.

Harmony is an integral part of the art music of our culture. Within small intervals of time, it plays a vital role in creating tension and release, as well as imbuing the sound with “color” that is different from the colors of keyboard register or orchestration. Within larger intervals of time, harmony helps to delineate form. Even composers who don’t always use functional harmony from sound to sound (such as Bartok, Prokofiev, Debussy, etc.) still rely on a sequence of tonal centers at cadencelike spots to mark the overall structure of the music. Harmony, more than melody and almost as much as rhythm, is both of the moment and of the entirety.

Learning about harmony, therefore, is only partially an intellectual activity involving analysis that eventually morphs into recognition. Much more than that, understanding harmony sensitizes the ear to perceive more about music “vertically” and “horizontally.” It is about hearing, feeling, and responding to varying levels of dissonance and consonance—small scale and large scale.

So my first answer to the question posed at the beginning of this article is, “With great willingness and pleasure, knowing that I am helping my students become more complete musicians while they are becoming better pianists.”

Now onto some specific highlights.

Harmony as structure

I teach my elementary-level students how to perceive do and the tonic function in whatever music they are playing. I don’t want them to just “know” what it is intellectually, but also to hear and feel it as the “Home” that all of the other notes want to go towards—to experience “tonal gravity.” Although actual dyads and chords may not show up in their music for a while, students can still recognize “Home” from a single tone in the melody or accompaniment. I use a variety of techniques to accomplish this. The most important one is that after a student has mastered the basics of playing each piece, I have them alter the final notes so they can hear for themselves that there is only one note that can sound like a stable and truly final ending. We then go back and observe what kind of tendencies other scale degrees have when they end phrases.

As soon as students are able to easily connect between any two fingers, I have them learn the following pattern, shown in Example 1.

I have students play this pattern with each hand separately, eventually in all white-key majors and minors (except B due to its awkward keyboard topography). I use this not only for reinforcing do and major/minor tonality, but also for evenness of sound, contrasting dynamics (which are added and changed regularly), good hand position, learning to play with a metronome, contrasting tempos (same as with dynamics), note-spelling using accidentals, octave shifts after the whole notes (these are introduced later), etc. I also periodically have them change the rhythm patterns. It is a good allpurpose activity for ear-training, rhythm decoding, and technique.

In some late elementary pieces, there are modulations to closely related keys. When these occur, I help students perceive the changes by purposefully lingering on the first appearance of the new do. We also discuss how the key change sounds when, for example, it goes up a fifth to major, or down a third to minor. I help students assign dynamic changes to express the feeling of each modulation, if the composer has not already marked them.

Many method books also offer a twelve-bar blues at the late elementary level. Since I usually introduce the primary chord progression much earlier, a few months into someone’s studies (see the next section), a blues piece is an ideal vehicle for reinforcing the close relationship between form and harmony. While the notes to the piece are being learned, I have students identify the harmonies and make a chart (see Example 2). After they can play the piece through with ease, I ask them to help the listener hear the harmonic structure more clearly by using the following dynamic changes; this provides a good starting point for interpreting other blues pieces later:

Notice how this same dynamic plan helps the following intermediate blues sound three-dimensional and expressive (see Excerpt 3). At the intermediate levels, harmony also plays a large role in delineating the form of sonatinas and sonatas. Minimally, I want students to hear that the key change leading into the second theme group, and then remaining in that key until the end of the exposition (usually the dominant), is one property that helps listeners feel where they are in the form. Likewise, the dominant to tonic gesture leading into the recap helps us know that we are at the recap, even if the main theme is not restated at that exact moment. I help students perceive these formal landmarks by making sure that they know where these harmonic events are and then practicing them as a unit—starting at the key change transition and ending at the resolution of the new key. The more that students chunk those areas, the more likely they will respond to the emotional implications of the structure.

The form of most Baroque music is communicated by the use of cadences and harmony. When my students learn a new Baroque piece, I first have them find the cadences and identify the tonal centers that are established. I help them feel the different “gravities” of each center by having them play the chord progression implied by those tonal centers. For instance, a piece in F major might pass through the following keys:

Playing this as a chord progression helps unify the overall structure in the player’s ear. I then assign spot-practice of each cadence and the harmonies leading into them to make sure that the “fasteners” of the piece are perceived before learning the sections that fall in between. This helps foster a gut-level understanding of the energy terrain of the entire piece—Schenkerian analysis in action.

Harmony as creator of expectations

I introduce the musical experience of harmonic expectations very early to first-year students, before their pieces have melodic leading tones or an accompaniment that implies a V chord. Students learn the following standard chord progression (see Example 4). The dyad version is for very young children not yet physically ready to play 5-3-1 in the left hand:

It is not enough for students to merely play this progression— they must also learn to listen to it with harmonic ears. Right from the beginning, I focus them on how the sound of the “Away” chord promises to deliver the “Home” chord. After students have mastered this in all of their pentascale keys (see above), they then learn the more complete version with a subdominant harmony (see Example 5).

I train students to hear that the IV chord is neutral in sound—it can just as easily go back to I as to any other chord; in other words, it has no particular tendency (unless a composition sets one up). I don’t introduce the Roman numeral terminology of these harmonies until their “tendencies” have been internalized.

After that, students use these chords in various activities. The first is usually figuring out “Happy Birthday” by ear in a number of major keys (and minor—great fun!). They play blocked chords in the left hand, melody in the right. This song presents harmonization challenges because it starts on sol rather than do, has a few non-chord tones, and begins on an upbeat (and thus no chord). But most students enjoy learning it, especially when I challenge them to be able to play it for names of any length, including “Uncle Alexander” or “Cousin Maria Teresa”!

Students then harmonize by ear other tunes that use only primary harmonies. By that time, “abbreviations” of these harmonies (as I call them, represented by only one or two tones) are starting to show up in their method book pieces. With a little guidance most students are able to start hearing them as functional sounds, rather than just isolated notes.

As students progress through the intermediate levels, I expect them to know and hear key changes in their music. On a smaller level, I expect them to recognize and respond to all manifestations of the dominant-tonic gesture, whether these appear melodically as ti-do or harmonically as V7-I.

This process gets extended in even more sophisticated music as students learn to recognize a I6/4 as a more distant promise to deliver the tonic through the dominant. They also start to hear the subdominant family as including the ii chord, especially if they are playing jazz repertoire. All of this provides a solid foundation for subsequent perception of secondary, extended, and altered chords, regardless of style.

If students get accustomed to this way of approaching music right from the early elementary level, they acquire the habit of listening harmonically.

Harmony as violator of expectations

It is an important event for students when, for the first time in their music, a dominant chord moves to the “wrong” harmony. I want to make sure they hear the “violation” and respond to it (see Excerpt 6).

Most students have difficulty hearing the specialness of the harmony at m. 20, partially because D minor is represented initially by only one note. It is also because there are very few (if any) deceptive cadences found in many modern method series, so students aren’t on the lookout for them. To help students perceive the “meaning” at m. 20, I ask them first to play a three-note D-minor chord in the left hand. This makes the minorness more explicit and easier to hear, and it also sets up the E in the right hand to be even more dissonant (enticing students to resolve it). If this seems to work, then we discuss the concept of an avoided cadence. After a while, we remove the “training wheels”—the extra harmonic tones in the left hand.

However, if students still do not seem to hear the surprise at m. 20, I use a technique that works wherever a musical event is not being responded to: I take it away. Since they are not perceiving the expectation of V-I being violated, I have them externalize the expectation— they practice an authentic cadence there for a week, rather than what Mozart notated. Then after hearing V-I repeatedly, when we put the D-minor harmony back in, students usually experience its affect for the first time.

Then I discuss how the fermata says to us, “Linger long enough for the listener to wonder about this delightful surprise.” I point out that since the next four-measure phrase “corrects” the avoided cadence, it needs to be played more decisively, and end in a way that communicates, “And that’s the way it’s supposed to be!” Here harmony drives the plot of the musical story.

All of this may seem like a convoluted way to teach students a mere two phrases in an early intermediate piece, since I could just play for them and have them imitate me. But what would that accomplish? Afterward the students would probably be no more sensitive to hearing this kind of event in the next piece, and I would once again have to teach it by rote, ad infinitum.

Just as the Mozart Minuet has a fermata at the deceptive cadence, many other pieces have markings that indicate that a special harmonic event requires variety in dynamics or flexibility in timing from the performer. For example, the following is an exquisite passage (see Excerpt 7).

Measure 31 acts as if a G-minor cadence is right around the corner, but instead, the harmonies in mm. 32-33 divert the music into momentarily visiting B_ major before finally cadencing in G minor. Chopin’s expression marks at the point of these violated expectations resonate with the harmonic moment: ritenutostretches the time of the V, making the expected move to G minor all the more yearned for. The arpeggiation of the A major chord in the right hand invites the player to loiter on the surprise harmony and allows the vigor of the C# to settle into the listener’s ear, before it slinks down to C natural in the next measure.

In these kinds of passages, I want my students to experience the raw harmonic surprise first, so they view the markings as limiting their choices about how to respond, rather than as “directions” to blindly follow. The former is true interpretation; the latter is not— score markings are the effect, not the cause. Therefore, if a student is not hearing m. 32 for what it is harmonically, I address that first. An uncomplicated “take-the-event-away” tactic here is to have the student omit mm. 32-35 and simply allow m. 31 to resolve to m. 36. When students practice that shortened prosaic version for a week, it is almost impossible for them not to perceive Chopin’s inspired harmonic (and melodic) detour after we put it back in.

Other areas of harmonic listening could be explored if more space allowed: harmonic rhythm, harmony as color, as varying degrees of tension and release, as melodic bass lines, etc. In future issues, this department will continue to explore this fascinating aspect of music and teaching.

Before closing, I would like to include one elementary-level example of what could be called “Harmony as comical expression.” There are many such instances in the music of Poulenc, Stravinsky, and others. Here is one of the first that my students experience (see Excerpt 8).

Most students play the half step in the left hand at m. 5 in an argumentative way, without much coaxing on my part. But after I help them hear that it is also a mangled V7 chord, they really play it with gusto! One funny way to be sure they do is to replace the half step with the usual whole-step V7. The contrast between that and the written version is comical in its own right. Having students play and play with this piece is marvelous fun and harmonically instructive at the same time.

Who could ask for anything more?

 Bruce Berr has been an independent teacher and university professor of piano and pedagogy for a long time. He is known nationally as a clinician, educational composer and arranger, and author on a wide variety of topics related to teaching, music, and piano. His column on personal observations, “ad lib,” appears regularly in American Music Teacher magazine, and he has been editor of the Rhythm department since 1997.

 

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