How To Harmonize On The Piano Book (With Audio)
This book takes you through all the necessary steps for building chord progressions to accompany a melody, whether it comes from a hit tune or your own original material. We start by harmonizing simple melodies with triads, and learning about "chord rhythms" (how often the chords change within a song). Then we progressively work with four-part or "seventh" chords, minor key harmonization, and modal & chromatic melodies.
The piano tracks in the book demonstrate the harmonization techniques in various different styles, and include excerpts from famous songs such as House Of The Rising Sun, Amazing Grace, Shenandoah and others. Many of the tracks also feature a rhythm section accompaniment, so that you can play along with the band. (Online audio access is included).
At the end of the book we have five complete melodies harmonized in various pop styles, all with play-along tracks. A unique feature of this book is that each of these melody examples also has a "melody and drums only" track, so that you can experiment with your own chords on the piano while playing along to the melody and drum part!
Here is a summary of the Chapters in this book:
1) Adding Basic Chords to Melodies
2) Using Chord Rhythms When Harmonizing
3) Using Upper Triads and Bass Inversions
4) Chromatic and Modal Melodies
5) More Advanced Harmonization Tools
6) Melody Harmonization Examples
Click on the sample pages below the front cover, then hover over each page to zoom in:
- page 14: Chord Rhythms and Diatonic Triads
- page 25: Diatonic Four-Part Chords
- page 57: Harmonization By Bass Line
- page 62: Parallel Motion Harmonization
- page 66: Melody Harmonization Example #2
See below for audio examples from these sample pages.