Bach's Four-Part Chorale Writing - Music Composition

This music composition lesson takes the first two phrases of a Chorale and works through a live harmonisation in the style of Bach. This video will be helpful to anyone wanting to improve their harmony and to anyone wanting to harmonise Chorales in the style of Bach. The video covers modulations and cadences, explores ways of working backwards as well as forwards, considers how to use common notes between one chord and the next, thinks out writing a bass line predominately in contrary motion with the given melody, suggests harmonic alternatives and how to evaluate the best choice in any given situation, considers how to achieve melodic integrity in each of the lines, adds colour and movement through devices such as secondary dominants and inessential notes, and explores how touches of counterpoint can be incorporated even in such a homophonic structure.

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🕘 Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction to Bach's four-part writing
1:20 - Musical phrases
1:56 - Keys and modulations
5:10 - Starting with the cadences
8:06 - Playing the melody with the cadences
8:32 - Filling out the cadences
16:33 - Adding chords to first phrase
25:21 - The first complete phrase
26:41 - Adding chords to second phrase
32:46 - Playing the completed chorale
33:16 - Conclusion

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[jayducharme]

What a great lesson! I love how you rarely discount any musical choices; they're just that -- choices -- and some can be more effective than others.

[lawrencetaylor]

I'm watching this for a third time, and learning each time. Gareth showed the Rule of the Octave, and that changed my life. What impresses me is Professor Green's musical knowledge, but also his ability to explain everything in such a clear step by step fashion.
But what really impresses me is that Gareth is able to sit at a keyboard and his fingers have been trained to do this on the fly. I'm going to be practicing my cadences in every key until it becomes second nature. Then I will move on to the next step.
Good things come to those who wait.
Merci beaucoup.

[adamrafferty]

I just wanna give you a huge thank you for this lesson. I don’t think I’ve watched a single video through to the end on YouTube in the last several years, but I watched this one today.

I set myself a little challenge at the beginning of your video, I jotted the melody down and tried to work out a harmonization Before watching your solution. I was close but you’re the maestro! Yours was definitely better.

Really thank you for this in-depth lesson.

[DenisPuscaOfficial]

Thank you for this video. I've been looking for a such one for months! Your Videos are very informing and intresting thank you!

[larrymack]

Thanks so much! Getting back into big band arranging and going back to the basics has been helping reengage my tools I learned in college

[paigewheeler]

Thank you for this video. It was reaffriming what I was beginning to discover by studying a few Bach pieces. I'm glad that I found some of the things you mentioned, like the use of the 3 chord and inserting a chord that was outside both keys. Yay! Glad that I found your channel.

[malzola]

I've seen all your videos about 4part harmony, fantastic stuff. In all of them if I'm not wrong, the melody lies in the upper voice. I imagine there are special adjustments to make to ensure the melody is clearly heard if on the bass or the tenor. I think it would be a really interesting topic for a new video. Anyway, your videos keep getting better and better, many thanks

[BazColne]

Lots of stuff there to work on. Thanks very much indeed.

[timdovecool]

Nice tuturoial sir.. .. Kindly, consider giving us four part piano playing fingering tactics, especially, batch chorales.

[paulking]

A wonderful lesson! Though I'm not quite sure that I've understood everything, I'll surely revisit this video and hopefully figure it all out.

[patrickemmanuvela]

Can u make a video about how to effectively use polychord & what are the great piece ever written using polychord :)

[andrewlord]

I had a go at this before watching the video ( last 4 part harmony I did was 40 years ago :) ). I got the same final cadence as you but didn't like the alto F# falling to a D. I seem to remember leading tones more naturally rising back to the tonic. That would then leave a note out of the final G - but I guess it's ok not to have the 5th of the chord present

[Vasioth]

Hey Gareth quick question, I thought the leading tone in an outer voice should resolve to the tonic. Does this rule get bypassed because of the modulation when you step down from the Vb chord?

Fantastic lesson by the way.