Harmony for Songwriters Course

Lesson 1 • The Chromatic Scale and Pitch Names

Introduces the twelve pitches of Western music and their letter-name system. Connects pitch naming to the keyboard layout for visual reference.

Lesson 2 • Reading and Writing Pitch Notation

Teaches staff notation, clefs, and ledger lines as tools for recording musical ideas. Enables songwriters to notate melodies and chord symbols accurately.

Lesson 3 • Intervals: Distance Between Pitches

Defines melodic and harmonic intervals by number and quality. Interval recognition is the perceptual skill underlying all chord and scale analysis.

Lesson 1 • Pentatonic and Blues Scales

Covers the five-note pentatonic scales and the blues scale as essential songwriting tools. Connects these scales to common melodic and improvisational patterns.

Lesson 2 • Key Signatures and the Circle of Fifths

Explains how key signatures encode a scale's accidentals and how keys relate through the circle of fifths. Provides a navigation tool for modulation and chord borrowing.

Lesson 3 • The Major Scale Formula

Presents the whole-step and half-step pattern that defines the major scale. Students construct major scales from any root, building transposition fluency.

Lesson 4 • Tonal Center and Key Feeling

Defines tonal gravity and how listeners perceive a home pitch. Trains recognition of tonic, dominant, and subdominant functions by ear.

Lesson 1 • Chord Inversions and Voicing

Introduces bass-note inversions and open versus close voicing. Students learn how voicing choices affect texture, smoothness, and register.

Lesson 2 • Extended Chords: Ninths, Elevenths, Thirteenths

Builds chords beyond the seventh by stacking additional thirds. Connects extended harmony to the coloristic language of pop, R&B, and jazz songwriting.

Lesson 3 • Chord Symbol Literacy

Standardizes the reading and writing of chord symbols used in lead sheets and charts. Ensures students can communicate chord choices clearly to collaborators.

Lesson 4 • Seventh Chords and Their Qualities

Extends triads by adding a seventh to create richer harmonic color. Covers the five main seventh chord types used across popular and jazz styles.

Lesson 1 • Cadences and Phrase Endings

Defines the four main cadence types and their expressive effects at phrase endings. Cadence choice shapes the emotional arc of a song section.

Lesson 2 • Harmonizing the Major Scale

Builds a triad on each degree of the major scale to create the diatonic chord set. Students identify the quality and Roman numeral of every diatonic chord.

Lesson 3 • Harmonizing the Minor Scale

Derives diatonic chords from natural and harmonic minor scales. Students compare minor-key chord qualities to their major-key counterparts.

Lesson 4 • Tonic, Subdominant, and Dominant Groups

Categorizes diatonic chords by their harmonic function and typical motion. Explains why certain chord sequences feel stable, tense, or transitional.

Lesson 1 • Principles of Smooth Voice Leading

Introduces contrary motion, oblique motion, and common-tone retention as tools for smooth connections. Establishes the perceptual basis for why voice leading matters.

Lesson 2 • Voice Leading in Song Arrangements

Transfers voice-leading skills to full song arrangements with multiple instruments. Students identify and fix voice-leading problems in their own demos.

Lesson 3 • Bass Lines and Harmonic Support

Focuses on the bass voice as the harmonic foundation and melodic line simultaneously. Students write bass lines that reinforce chord function and add forward motion.

Lesson 4 • Voice Leading in Four-Part Writing

Applies classical SATB principles to chord progressions in four voices. Provides a structured framework that transfers to keyboard and guitar arranging.

Lesson 1 • Secondary Dominants as Modulation Tools

Introduces secondary dominants as brief tonicizations that can initiate or prepare modulations. Connects this technique to the broader concept of applied chords.

Lesson 2 • Modal Mixture and Borrowed Chords

Borrows chords from the parallel minor or major to add color without fully modulating. Students identify and use borrowed chords in original progressions.

Lesson 3 • Understanding Modulation

Defines modulation as a confirmed change of tonal center and distinguishes it from tonicization. Students identify modulations in recorded songs by ear.

Lesson 4 • Direct and Chromatic Modulation

Covers abrupt key changes and chromatic voice-leading modulations for dramatic effect. Students learn when directness serves the song better than smoothness.

Lesson 1 • Pedal Points and Harmonic Stasis

Uses sustained bass notes and static harmony as contrast to active chord motion. Students learn to balance harmonic movement and stillness for dramatic effect.

Lesson 2 • Tritone Substitution

Replaces a dominant seventh chord with the dominant a tritone away for smooth chromatic bass motion. Connects jazz reharmonization to pop and R&B production.

Lesson 3 • Chromatic Mediants and Planing

Introduces third-related chord movements and parallel chord planing as coloristic devices. These techniques appear frequently in film scoring and modern pop production.

Lesson 4 • Reharmonization Strategies

Teaches systematic methods for replacing original chords with harmonically richer alternatives. Students reharmonize existing melodies to create new emotional readings.

Lesson 1 • Melody and Harmony Interaction

Analyzes how chord tones, extensions, and non-chord tones shape melodic tension and release. Students write melodies that exploit harmonic color intentionally.

Lesson 2 • Harmonic Roles of Song Sections

Maps harmonic function onto verse, pre-chorus, chorus, and bridge roles. Students understand how each section's harmony contributes to the song's overall shape.

Lesson 3 • Harmonic Rhythm and Groove

Defines harmonic rhythm as the rate of chord change and its effect on energy and groove. Students control harmonic rhythm to match the song's tempo and feel.

Lesson 4 • Full Song Harmonic Blueprint

Guides students through planning a complete song's harmonic map before writing. Produces a reusable workflow for harmonic decision-making in every new song.