A Beginner's Guide to Four-Part Harmony - Music Theory

Beginner's guide to four-part harmony. This music theory lesson explains the basics of how to write four-part harmony to fit with a given melody. Often people can write a tune they are happy with but they are not sure which chords to use and how to write those chords. This video provides a step by step guide through the basics of how to do this. You will soon be choosing chords that work really well with your melodies and learning how to choose the chords that sound good.

🕘 Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction to four-part harmony
0:54 - Getting the basic triads
2:45 - Which chords can you use?
6:13 - Thinking about cadences
10:05 - Chord options
13:14 - Deciding which chord to have
15:13 - Writing in the notes
19:14 - Chord inversions
26:42 - What does it all sound like?

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[MusicMattersGB]

Learn Music Online - Check out our courses here!

[DanSarka]

I’ve been an untrained songwriter and musician arranging harmonies by ear and brute force since the ‘80s, but I got halfway smart a few years ago and started learning theory; I can’t believe it’s taken this long to stumble across a harmony primer as clearly, succinctly and elegantly presented as this. Thank you so much.

[fredacuneo]

Took 4 semesters of music theory in college - and this course really puts it in wonderfully easy to understand form. Thank you!

[daynaomi]

To be honest you're teaching better than all my music teachers. The way you're teaching is so easy to understand. Thank u very much.❤️‍🔥

[tomvucci]

‘Oh...a bit of a surprise on that one’ 😃
I’ve always loved an interrupted cadence.

[DavidWoodardMMED]

Positively, The Best, Most Sequential Music Theory Course, I have seen, and I have watched many of them, not to mention during two Music Education Degrees.

[misi]

One of the most understandable and usefull harmony lessons I have is this. Thank You for this wonderfull and practical harmony lesson!

[mahpianodi]

Well, I’m kinda speechless. That was a great opening tutorial to Harmony lessons.
I’m a bit jealous of your skill in playing those four-part chords smoothly.
You get a thumbs up from me.❤️

[iwright]

These are best music lessons I have come across on YouTube . You are a great teacher, no gimmicks very easy to understand and apply, Thank you very much

[XprPrentice]

This is incredibly helpful! I wrote a piece more than 10 years ago, orchestrated it for beginning wind band, but I didn't really understand 4-part harmony - I just knew the chords I wanted and filled in notes with not much reasoning behind it. I'm revisiting it now, and this video is helping me to make decisions _on purpose_ !

[rutheproppi]

Maestro, I have watched this video and it took awhile (I am an amateur) but it is quite lovely to have someone who takes the time to teach and NOT preach. With respect and gratitude, please, please never stop. R

[goddess_ofchaos]

I've played the piano for over 10 years now but I have never thought about the theory of harmonising too much. It's cool to learn something new every day!

[shandani]

Thank you so much for this lesson. I didn't know about consecutive fifths and cadences. Music is not as easy as thought, but teachers like you help a great deal. You are awesome.

[Grasslehoff]

kinda makes me wish I had music teachers like you growing up. super-comprehensive lesson, thank you.

[theophilos]

‘In 4-part vocal writing You may not approach a Perfect Consonance (unison, octave, 5th or 4th) by Direct Motion : all other options of motus are allowable’ —

Thus W.A.Mozart taught the young 21-year old Englishman Thomas Attwood in Vienna (between Monday 1 August 1785 thro’ Sunday 4 March 1787)

Thankfully we still have extant Attwood’s student harmony notebook (K. 506a) consisting of 242 extant sheets (about 50-75 sheets seem to have gone missing over time for various reasons) — the first 35 sheets or so were dedicated to ‘Toni a Modi’ where M. would provide the Canto part (upper-soprano part) for e.g, 16-32 bars where Attwood was given ‘as homework’ to provide the 3 additional notes (a note written by M. in broken English dated 25 August 1785 says : ‘Tis Allways better to
Use Full Cords’ [sic] ) = a very useful rule of thumb for beginners in Composition …

Conversely Attwood would be given a bass-line (16-32 bars) where he had to add the upper voices ‘for homework’ which was usually due the next day (e.g, ‘For Tuesday’ &c.)

Attwood’s initial attempts [beginning around 19 August 1785] to provide the ‘full chords’ met with some stern censure by M. who wrote on one sheet ‘Ther are many Faults in this Exempl - atentive’ [sic] and scribbl’d on several of the following pages ‘You are an Ass’ [!] whenever Attwood turn’d in any homework assignment with more than 2 errors…

At the bottom of one particular ‘fully corrected’ homework assignment Attwood prefac’d his clean-copy (on his 3rd attempt) with :

‘Tuesday 23 August 1785 - Mr Thos Attwood sends his Regards to W.A. Mozart & hopes that he will find No Room for Correction with this Exercise.’

M. was apparently very particular about how all 4 voices appear’d on the sheet in front of him & offer’d dozens of corrected examples by means of footnotes indicated by sigils (+, NB:, X, & a host of alchemical symbols probably out of one of Leopold Mozart’s library to mark which bar is being corrected at the bottom of the page …)

Attwood’s work seem’d to have improved in his Toni a Modi examples over time judging by the contents of the extant pages in the autograph MS so that by 30 September 1785 he had cover’d all the basics of figur’d bass (‘thorough-bass’ or ‘Bezifferung’) with all the concomitant inversions of intervals so that M. was satisfied that Attwood could begin his Fuxian Counterpoint studies in earnest (starting with Fux’ Gradus ad Parnassum (1725) pages 41 through 99) but the point is M. dedicated 2 whole months to Attwood ev’ry afternoon to cover thoroughly all the various chord sequences common in 4-part harmony -

Long story short - this very helpful video gives us a clever 40, 000 foot overview ‘cheat-sheet’ of adding ‘full chords’ to any given Melody —all of which should make this very delicate task a little more ‘intelligible’ !! LoL

[rgwebster]

I was amazed at how much of the song was written before playing a note. The logic of how the notes fit together is no less beautiful than the sounds they produce. Thank you!

[Northon]

I take your classes regularly. My big compliments to you explanation. I see many simple lessons on the internet. Your lessons are number 1 in terms of content.
From the Netherlands

[radsy]

I knew most of the theory behind this but seeing it applied blew my mind. Thank you so much!

[brendanmcgrane]

Outstanding content, thank you Gareth.

[ffifofum]

Some of the best composition videos on YouTube. Thank you