🎼 Music Theory II: Harmony and Form

What you’ll learn

1. From the Alphabet to the GrammarSet the split with Music Theory I and state the course's through-line — tension and release — plus the vertical/horizontal faces of harmony.Music Theory I supplies the vocabulary (notes, rhythm, scales, keys, intervals); this course teaches grammar — harmony and form — and assumes the fundamentals rather than re-teaching them. Its single organizing idea is that harmony creates and resolves tension. Harmony has a vertical face (how a chord is built and feels) and a horizontal face (how chords move).
2. The Triad: Chords Are Stacked ThirdsBuild the triad as stacked thirds and distinguish the four qualities by the size of the third and fifth.A triad is a root plus a third and a fifth stacked above it. The third sets the mood (major vs minor), the fifth is usually a stable perfect fifth. Choosing the sizes yields four triads: major and minor (stable), diminished and augmented (unstable). The unstable pair exist because they demand to move.
3. Inversions: Same Chord, New BottomExplain inversions — a chord keeps its identity regardless of the bass note — and why the bass line matters.A chord is defined by its notes, not their order, so C–E–G, E–G–C, and G–C–E are all C major in root, first, and second inversion. Inversions let a composer choose which note is in the bass, shaping the bass line as its own melody: root position is conclusive, inversions are mobile.
4. The Seventh: The Chord That Can't Sit StillIntroduce the seventh chord and the dominant seventh as harmony's main engine of tension.Adding a third third to a triad makes a seventh chord, whose added note creates a leaning dissonance. The dominant seventh (major triad plus minor seventh) contains a tense tritone and a leading tone, making it the strongest generator of forward motion and setting up the pull to the tonic.
5. Chords as Roles: Roman Numerals and the Three FunctionsTeach Roman-numeral analysis and the three harmonic functions (tonic, pre-dominant, dominant).Roman numerals name chords by scale degree and quality, capturing a chord's role rather than its letter, and are portable across keys. The seven diatonic chords sort into three functions: tonic (home), pre-dominant (away: IV, ii), and dominant (tension: V, vii°). Leave home, build tension, return home is the skeleton of tonal music.
6. Tension and Release: The Engine of HarmonyEstablish the V–I motion as the core tension-and-release relationship and how composers delay or dodge it.The dominant-to-tonic motion is the fundamental gesture of tonal harmony, driven by the leading tone rising to the tonic and, in a V7, the tritone resolving inward. Composers shape expression by delaying the resolution (heightening tension) or denying it with a surprise chord (the deceptive move).
7. Cadences: How Music PunctuatesPresent the four cadences as musical punctuation and their differing degrees of finality.Cadences close phrases with varying finality: the authentic (V–I) is a full stop; the plagal (IV–I) a gentle 'amen'; the half cadence ends on V, hanging like a question; the deceptive (V–vi) sets up the tonic then dodges it. Hearing cadences reveals a piece's structure at its phrase joints.
8. Voice Leading: The Smooth Path Between ChordsReframe progressions as simultaneous melodic lines and teach the principle of smooth voice leading.A progression can be heard as four voices each singing a line; voice leading is managing those lines by economy of motion — moving each voice minimally and keeping common tones — for smooth, independent parts. The ban on parallel fifths/octaves protects voice independence, which the ear otherwise hears as collapsing into one voice.
9. Secondary Dominants and Modulation: Leaving HomeIntroduce secondary dominants and modulation (via pivot chord) as the mechanism of large-scale form.A secondary dominant borrows the V–I pull to target a chord other than the tonic (e.g., V/V), adding tension and colour. Modulation shifts the tonal centre so a new note feels like home; a pivot chord shared by both keys makes the change seamless. Journeying to a new key and back shapes long pieces — tension and release writ large.
10. From Motif to Form: How Music Is OrganizedPresent the hierarchy of form (motif→phrase→period→section) and the antecedent–consequent (question–answer) period.Form is tension and release at large scale, built from nested units: motif, phrase, period, section, movement. The antecedent–consequent period pairs a phrase ending on a half cadence (question) with one ending on an authentic cadence (answer), showing that cadences are the bricks of larger structures.
11. The Song Forms: Binary, Ternary, and BeyondName the common small forms (binary, ternary, rondo, theme & variations) and connect them to popular music (verse–chorus, twelve-bar blues).Labelling sections by letter reveals common blueprints: binary (AB, out and back), ternary (ABA, statement–contrast–return), rondo (a returning refrain), and theme & variations. Popular forms share this grammar — verse–chorus is rondo-like, and the twelve-bar blues is a fixed I–IV–V pattern over twelve measures.
12. Sonata Form: The Great ArgumentExplain sonata form as a large-scale drama of tonal conflict and resolution uniting every concept in the course.Sonata form is the dominant large-scale plan for first movements: an exposition poses a first theme in the home key and a second in a different key (the tension), a development throws the themes through unstable modulations, and a recapitulation resolves the conflict by returning the second theme in the home key, optionally confirmed by a coda.
13. Coda: Why It All ResolvesClose the through-line — the identical tension-and-release mechanism operates at every scale of music.From a single dominant-seventh chord to a whole sonata movement, the mechanism is the same: establish stability, introduce tension, resolve it. Harmony and form describe how music creates feeling and satisfies it, and the trained listener can now hear the argument being posed and resolved throughout tonal music.

Questions this course answers

Grounded in trusted sources

• Stefan Kostka & Dorothy Payne, Tonal Harmony (standard undergraduate text)
• William Caplin, Classical Form
• Standard references on harmonic function, cadences, voice leading, modulation, and sonata form
• The twelve-bar blues as a fixed I–IV–V harmonic pattern (standard music references)

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