Chords for How I wish HARMONY was explained to me as a student

Hello, my name is Nari Sol.
I'm a pianist-composer and in this video I'm going to do my best to
explain music harmony in the simplest way possible.
I think a lot of textbooks and
music schools tend to overcomplicate this topic a bit, so I was thinking to myself,
if I were to keep this under 10 minutes, what are the most important points I would include
to help make sense of this all?
So this may not be the most comprehensive [Fm] guide, but that's not
the point.
I'd rather [G] give you the context in which you can use this [F] knowledge to help support
your music making and more importantly break free from thinking like there are all these details
that you need to be mindful of and all of these rules that you need to follow.
I also have a very
special announcement to make, so look out for that in this video.
_ [D] _ _ _
_ Harmony is [C] about how sounds
vibrate together.
There are and there aren't rules that make these sounds vibrate well together.
It
really depends on culture, context, and preference.
How these five notes vibrate together [Bb] is [Ebm] _ _
_ _ quite
different than [Bbm] how these seven notes vibrate together, [A] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ which is one of the most important
sets of notes in western music.
So much so that if you go to a piano and you just play the white
notes, you're already plugging in to the seven note scale, which is called the major scale.
There are
many ways to break up the distance between an octave. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Ebm] _ _
A major scale is just one of the [Am] options _ _ _
_ and what gives it its identity is [A] the unique [C] spacing between the notes.
If you're playing
single notes and you move them around, there is already a sense of harmony there.
_ _ [E] _ _
_ _ [C] So if a single
note is like a rose, a chord is like [G] a bouquet of roses.
Now we're operating with a larger unit.
We
can use [D] the same scale as before, but now [C] build the notes into chords.
_ _ [G] _ [Am] _
_ [C] _ Now each of the notes are
supported with extra sound. _ _ _ _ _ _
If you have a melody, the chords can be supporting the notes of the melody.
_ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
[C] _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ [G] _ _ [C] _ The strongest note of a chord is very fittingly called the root and it's like the base of a bouquet
of flowers.
It holds everything together.
So the root of this C major chord is the C.
_ _ When these
root notes change with chords, this is what we call a chord progression.
It's basically having
groups of notes in succession [G] of one another.
[C] _
_ A lot of times in school we're taught to memorize
these chords and we're thinking of them as a straight line, but I like to think of them more
three-dimensionally, as if these chords [G] are sort of orbiting around each other.
Some chords have
more [C] gravity than others and that's also why some chords are used more often than others.
Like
breathing in and out, having chords like one and five is like _ [G] having an anticipation and then
a release.
[F] This tension and release [C] is what gives music shape.
It's no different than [Am] how a good
story [G] has ups and downs [F] and this is what keeps you engaged.
[Dm] The amazing thing is that you can make
these chords [C] as big or _ [G] _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ as small as you want.
_ _ _ _ _ _ By the way, if you at any point feel lost or you feel
like you need to brush up on some music theory, I just released my book called Nari Sol's Elements
of Music.
I've done my best to compile a bunch of my knowledge when it comes to music and I've
digested it in a way that hopefully is very practical to beginners and seasoned musicians
alike.
I've put so much heart and soul into this.
It would mean so much if you check out the link.
I've put it in the description below, so definitely do give it a chance.
Let's go back to how I was
moving around one note to create harmony.
What if I told you that there is already harmony in that
single note?
Kind of like when [Db] you see a color such as purple, it contains red and blue even though
you can't see those colors, _ pitches vibrate together to create a single sound.
The science
of this has to do with something called the overtone series.
[Bb] A lot of times when harmony is
being explained, [C] this is mentioned in the very beginning, but to be honest I think this
overcomplicates things a bit.
All you have to know is that when you're hearing a C, all of these other
notes are also vibrating.
_ _ _ It's hard to hear them unless you have a trained ear, but believe me,
they're all there.
Thankfully, mathematicians and musicians in history did groundwork and devised
tools and systems to help us utilize harmony.
One of such tools is called the circle of fifths.
_ _ [Eb] _ _
There are [B] many ways to use this, much like there are many ways to [C] use a color wheel.
These symbols
come from a system of music notation that lets us label all of these notes.
It also shows us
how different key centers relate to one another.
_ [F] _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [Db] _ _
Again, it's really all about how different groups
of notes vibrate together.
This is what composers keep in mind to play with contrast.
Think of the
color wheel again.
Sometimes we want to choose colors that blend well with one another, and
sometimes we want to choose colors that are in contrast with one another so that they pop out.
Similarly, sometimes we'll [C] use key centers that blend well with one another, _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ [C]
and sometimes we'll
use key centers that don't, and this is a form of contrast.
_ _ _ _ [E] _ _ [F] _
_ _ Now, color is a very subjective thing.
It really depends on context.
[C] It's the same with music.
What sounds harmonious and settled is what
we call consonant, _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ [C] and what doesn't sound harmonious nor settled is what we've referred
to as being dissonant.
[D] _ _ [Db] _ [C] The reason why something like this _ [Gb] _ _ sounds more dissonant is [C] because of the
frame of [F] reference we're in. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ Now let's hear a similar moment.
Let's say that this is our sound
world.
_ [G] _ _
_ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Perhaps that felt different, perhaps less dissonant, even though in the previous example,
[F] it felt quite a [C] bit more dissonant.
_ _ _ _ _ The beautiful thing about utilizing harmony is that these
rules only exist [Am] as guidelines.
We can really follow [G] them or we can break free from them.
Much like fashion, for [F] example, we can follow [C] the traditional formats [Eb] of dressing, but we can also
break free from [Ab] that and experiment.
As an artist, we can [D] utilize some [C] or all of the [Db] rules.
It really
[C] is up to us.
_ [C] _ _ [D] _
_ Hopefully [G] that gave you some extra insights into harmony.
If you want to dig deeper,
do [E] check out my book, [D] Nari Sol's Elements of [Am] Music.
There is a special [Ab] discount happening.
Thank you so [G] much to my patrons on Patreon.
If you haven't subscribed already, do subscribe,
and I'll see you