Concept
Harmony
Overview
In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harmonic objects such as chords, textures and tonalities are identified, defined, and categorized in the development of these theories. Harmony is broadly understood to involve both a "vertical" dimension (frequency-space) and a "horizontal" dimension (time-space), and often overlaps with related musical concepts such as melody, timbre, and form.
A particular emphasis on harmony is one of the core concepts underlying the theory and practice of Western music. The study of harmony involves the juxtaposition of individual pitches to create chords, and in turn the juxtaposition of chords to create larger chord progressions. The principles of connection that govern these structures have been the subject of centuries worth of theoretical work and vernacular practice alike.
Drawing both from music theoretical traditions and the field of psychoacoustics, its perception in large part consists of recognizing and processing consonance, a concept whose precise definition has varied throughout history, but is often associated with simple mathematical ratios between coincident pitch frequencies. In the physiological approach, consonance is viewed as a continuous variable measuring the human brain's ability to 'decode' aural sensory input. Culturally, consonant pitch relationships are often described as sounding more pleasant, euphonious, and beautiful than dissonant pitch relationships, which can be conversely characterized as unpleasant, discordant, or rough.
In popular and jazz harmony, chords are named by their root plus various terms and characters indicating their qualities. In many types of music, notably baroque, romantic, modern, and jazz, chords are often augmented with "tensions". A tension is an additional chord member that creates a relatively dissonant interval in relation to the bass. The notion of counterpoint seeks to understand and describe the relationships between melodic lines, often in the context of a polyphonic texture of several simultaneous but independent voices. Therefore, it is sometimes seen as a type of harmonic understanding, and sometimes distinguished from harmony.
Typically, in the classical common practice period, a dissonant chord (chord with tension) "resolves" to a consonant chord. Harmonization usually sounds pleasant when there is a balance between consonance and dissonance. This occurs when there is a balance between "tense" and "relaxed" moments. Dissonance is an important part of harmony when it can be resolved and contribute to the composition of music as a whole. A misplayed note or any sound that is judged to detract from the whole composition can be described as disharmonious rather than dissonant.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Harmony is discussed.
As has already been said above[74] this hypothesis is inadmissible for several reasons. To begin with, the soul is prior (to the body), and the harmony is posterior thereto. Then the soul dominates the body, governs it, and often even resists it, which would be impossible if the soul were only a harmony. The soul, indeed, is a "being," which harmony is not. When the corporeal principles of which we are composed are…
Plotinus, Plotinos
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is
There is nothing of caprice, of peculiarity, in the content of the monad. It shows forth order; it is organized by law; it reveals the necessary connections which constitute the universe. The pre-established harmony is the unity of the individual and the universe; it is the organic oneness of freedom and necessity.
John Dewey, Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
In this respect, replied Simmias:--Suppose a person to use the same argument about harmony and the lyre--might he not say that harmony is a thing invisible, incorporeal, perfect, divine, existing in the lyre which is harmonized, but that the lyre and the strings are matter and material, composite, earthy, and akin to mortality? And when some one breaks the lyre, or cuts and rends the strings, then he who takes this…
Plato, Phaedo
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Nothing, therefore, can be good, except in so far as it is in harmony with our nature; and hence a thing is useful, in proportion as it is in harmony with our nature, and vice versâ. Q.E.D. PROP. XXXII. In so far as men are a prey to passion, they cannot, in that respect, be said to be naturally in harmony. Proof.--Things, which are said to be in harmony naturally, are understood to agree in power (III. vii.), not…
Benedictus de Spinoza, Ethics
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Now there is an absurdity saying that harmony is discord or is composed of elements which are still in a state of discord. But what he probably meant was, that harmony is composed of differing notes of higher or lower pitch which disagreed once, but are now reconciled by the art of music; for if the higher and lower notes still disagreed, there could be no harmony,--clearly not.
Plato, Symposium
names the idea; states what it is
Philosophers who discussed Harmony
Related ideas
- Ancient Greek
- Music
- Western culture
- Renaissance
- Pythagoreanism
- The Beatles
- Octave
- Oxford University Press
- Teleology
- Europe
- Aristoxenus
- Melody
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Aesthetics.