Tag: doubling

Basic Music Theory Part 2: Course Outline

Description

This course is part 2 of a two-part course in basic music theory and includes elements of notation and musicianship.

Part 2 is made up of 21 lessons of about 30 minutes duration. This amounts to one semester at one lesson per week or a 6-week course at one lesson every two days.

Although each lesson is self-contained, the lessons are designed to run in numerical order.

Lessons are grouped in modules of just a few lessons. You don’t need to commit to the full course; just work though one module at a time.

Requirements

Part 2 assumes that you have completed Part 1 of this course or have an equivalent understanding of the following:

  • basic music notation
  • counting in bars and beats
  • simple time
  • scales, keys and key signatures
  • major, minor and perfect intervals 

Although Part 2 includes music notation, like Part 1, musicians who play by ear are well catered for with plenty of audio, video, text and illustrations.

Recommended Additional Resources 

This is primarily a music theory course. The notation exercises included are far from comprehensive and may be supplemented by music reading, beginner music theory workbooks and transcription exercises.

The musicianship/ear training exercises in this course are also far from comprehensive. I have focused on the most generally useful skills for this course. There are a number of dedicated musicianship courses available to further develop these skills.

Outcomes

An Understanding Of The Following Musical Concepts

  • Syncopation in simple time
  • Compound time
  • Triplets in simple time
  • Swing notation
  • Anacrusis (upbeat)
  • Harmonic minor scale
  • Melodic minor scale
  • Augmented and diminished intervals
  • Inversion of intervals
  • Major and minor triads
  • Modal (open/power) chords
  • Inversions of triads
  • Doubling
  • Relative chord names
  • The chords of the major scale
  • Dominant 7th chords

Musicianship Skills

  • Tap or play syncopated rhythms in simple time down to semiquavers
  • Tap or play simple rhythms in compound time down to semiquavers
  • Count in for an anacrusis
  • Sing major and minor triads in all inversions
  • Recognise and name major and minor triads in all inversions
  • Recognise notes that belong to a major or minor chord and sing them in your octave

Notation

  • Triplets
  • Time signatures in compound time
  • Swing notation
  • Octave up/down
  • Anacrusis 
  • Basic chord symbols 
  • Relative chord names and symbols

START HERE

PART 2 CONTENTS

B17. Chord Voicing: Doubling And Note Distribution

This post is one of a 2-part series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here. Please feel welcome to make a comment or ask a question.

A chord’s inversion is the most significant aspect of chord voicing. However, the pitch order and distribution of the other notes still have some bearing on the chord’s overall sound as well as on how the music flows from one chord to the next.

In many genres, the exact details of chord voicing are left up to the player. To do this well, players should be aware of the effects of different voicing options. 

The approach to voicing in the context of a piece is highly dependent on genre and beyond the scope of this beginner course. However, being aware of the parameters goes a long way towards developing a sense of flow in a chord progression.

Inversions are certainly the best place to start: the bass notes of chords are easily felt as a coherent part. When you’re ready, you can add more finesse by tweaking the pitch order of the other chord notes.

Doubling: More Is More

Doubling means to have more than one note of the same name. Usually notes are doubled at a higher or lower octave. If your instrument permits (or if the chord is played by an ensemble) you can also double a note in unison.

Like inversions, doubling a note makes it a more prominent part of the chord, although the effect is less powerful than the chord’s inversion.

  • Doubling the root note makes the chord more stable and helps it to represent the key.
  • Doubling the 3rd highlights the major or minor tonality.
  • Doubling the 5th creates ambiguity, highlighting the potential for a chord change where the 5th becomes the root note of the next chord. This chord change doesn’t need to follow: the sense of ambiguity can also be maintained as part of the chord’s character.

Try This…

The following C major chords are all in root position, with each chord featuring a different doubled note.

  1. Listen for the root note in each chord and sing or play the root note along with each chord, in an octave you can manage. It’s the same note for all three; the lowest note, C
  2. Now listen for the strongest note in each chord and sing that note. This time it’s not the same for all three chords. Is it the note that’s doubled?

Doubled, most doubled

If more than one note is doubled, the note with the most representatives, either in other octaves or in unison, will contribute most to the chord’s character.

The Distribution Of Notes In A Chord

Although less significant, there are other factors that affect chord voicing, such as:

  • Pitch: is the whole chord high or low?
  • Range: does the chord cover several octaves or just one?
  • Density: are there close intervals between some chord notes or are all the notes spread apart?

Try This…

If you play a chord instrument, experiment with different ways of playing the same chord. Test out the effects of inversions, doubling and note distribution for yourself.

You can do this on a melody instrument, too.

On a melody instrument you can create an effect similar to a chord by playing an arpeggio, as we saw in B15. The faster the arpeggio is played, the more chord-like the result.

Arpeggios sound even more chord-like if you play in a reverberant room. If you’re amplified, you can add some reverb instead.

Any pitch order within the instrument’s range can be played as an arpeggio, including doubled notes.

Here are a couple of generalised observations you can test…

Low is strong: 

  • A high chord is weaker than a low chord
  • Lowering the bass note by an octave makes a chord stronger

Separation equals clarity: 

  • The clearest chords have their notes widely spaced in pitch 
  • Close intervals can clash or muddy the sound, especially at lower octaves (Note: this could be a desired effect. It’s not a critique, just an observation)

If you found this post helpful, please feel welcome to like, share or leave a comment. If you have any questions, leave them as a comment and I’ll respond as soon as I can. To stay up to date with new posts, please subscribe.

NEXT LESSON: B18. Listen And Sing: Learn To Recognise The Notes Of A Major/Minor Chord 

PART 2 CONTENTS: Basic Music Theory Course Contents

A Power Chord Is A Chord

A power chord is a chord that’s made up of just 2 notes: the root note and the perfect 5th. This chord is also known as a modal chord or open chord.

Many schools of music teach that the most basic chord is a triad (root note, 3rd and 5th) and brush aside the existence of what is, in various genres both traditional and modern, one of the most common types of chords.

“It’s an interval!”

Time and again I will come across the argument that a modal chord (aka power chord) isn’t a chord because a chord needs at least three notes. A two-note chord isn’t a chord, it’s an interval, they say.

First, notes in a chord can be doubled, in unison or any number of octaves. On guitar, for example, modal chords are used extensively in some genres, some even using different tunings to enable more of such chords to be played on all 6 strings.

Which leads me to a point. An interval has ONLY two notes. Add an octave and you have 3 notes, which, surely, is a chord. It’s certainly not just an interval anymore.

Furthermore, even two notes played together as a “chord” become three notes if there is a melody over the chords. A chord is made up of all the notes that occur at a given moment. If it’s a brief moment, it’s called a passing chord (I’m not suggesting that you need to analyse music to that degree… unless you want to…).

Finally, I would argue that even with a single note, such as a drone, and a melody over it, the progression of intervals produced acts like a chord progression, like chords with a note left out.

“It’s a major chord with the 3rd left out!”

Others will describe a modal/power chord as a major chord with the 3rd left out. To me, that’s like saying a major chord is a 7th chord with the 7th left out… it’s creating complexity where there is none. Worse, it’s misleading.

The beauty of a modal chord is that, by not having a 3rd, it can fit the context of either a major chord or a minor chord. A major chord can’t do that, so not having a 3rd gives a modal chord a completely different character to a major chord. 

For example, if the melody had the minor 3rd followed by the major 3rd, both would be main notes (chord notes). The same chord would act as minor to accommodate the first note, then major for the second note. This may seem obvious because it is…

Please feel welcome to comment, whether you agree or disagree. Posts in this category are just my thoughts and opinions and I’d love to read yours. This category is a forum for discussion.