Skills Required for Successful Harmonic Dictation

• Understanding the relationship of chords to the tonal center

• Discriminating between chord qualities and recognizing inversions

• Recognizing familiar melodic patterns (linear movement) in the melody and bass and their placement

• Recognizing and notating cadences

• Understanding the norms of the common-practice style

• Three harmonic areas or functions

  • Tonic - I and vi

  • Subdominant or Predominant - IV and ii or ii7

  • Dominant - V or V7 and vii° or vii°7

• Other harmonic truths:

  • Root position chords are considered strong

  • The supertonic and leading-tone chords are commonly found in first inversion

  • The supertonic in first inversion is a strong subdominant harmony

• Second inversion and sometimes first inversion harmonies are often used to prolong stronger harmonies. There are four basic ways to prolong a harmony:

  • Passing harmonies

  • Neighbor harmonies

  • Arpeggiated harmonies

  • Cadential harmonies

• Harmonic progressions move from tonic to subdominant to dominant to tonic (T-S-D-T)

• Dominant harmonies don’t move to subdominant

• Chromatic chords prolong the harmony they lead to

• Significant harmonic function changes usually occur on strong beats

• When the bass line is conjunct, harmonies are generally being prolonged

• When large skips or leaps occur in the bass it often signals a change of function

Connecting the Dots Between Hearing and Notating

• Understanding what commonly ends a phase

  • Understand that only I, V, or vi can be the last chord

  • Understand cadential patterns (bass and soprano)

  • Listen for basic patterns in the bass line

  • Be able to aurally identify cadences

  • Understand what harmonies are implied from knowing the bass line

• Understanding what commonly begins a phrase

  • Return to tonic

  • Listen for basic patterns in the bass line

• Understanding what commonly occurs in the middle of a phase

  • Common subdominant function

  • Possible use of chromatic harmony

  • Possible use of inverted chords

  • Listen for common basic patterns in the bass line

Implied Harmonies

• This is a list of what harmonies are implied from knowing the bass line

Recognizing and Notating Cadences

• Cadence - The way phrases end.

• Most common bass line endings

  • So-So-Do

  

  • Fa-So-Do

• With Fa-So-Do in the bass, these are the common melodic patterns:

  • ii6-V7-I can harmonize with Re-Re-Do; IV-V-I can’t because there’s no Re in the IV chord.

  • IV-V-I can be harmonized with Do-Ti-Do, but not Do-Re-Do.

  • ii6-V or V7-I can be harmonized with Re-Re-Do or Re-Ti-Do.

Recognizing and Notating the Mid-Phase

• These are common progressions, implied harmonies, and other elements that might be featured in the middle.

• The middle section uses inversions if the bass is moving stepwise.