Chapter 15 - Aural Skills 3: Harmonic Dictation

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.