EXERCISE 2 – STARTING FROM HARMONY
Select one out of four options
1. Four chord cycle accompaniment
o Construct a sequence of four harmonies centred on
a major or minor key that still sounds interesting
when repeated four times.
o Each harmony must be built on a different root.
o All harmonies must consist of a minimum of three
pitches (ie. triad), or they could be four or five note
chords.
o One or two chords must come from OUTSIDE the
key.
o With one chord per bar, write a piece for piano or
keyboard that repeats the cycle four times, lasting
16 bars, and explores the sound of changing
voicings/inversions across your repeating cycle of
chords. Not just block chords, create texture and
accompaniment, but no melody line.
o Tempo/Metre: your choice
2. Morphing chord sequence
o Write a sequence of 13 four part chords, one per bar,
following this procedure:
o Pick two 3- or 4-note chords that have no notes in
common (eg. C major and D major triads), and place them
at bars 1 and 5. In the intervening bars you gradually
substitute one note from the first chord with one note
from the second chord until you arrive at the second
chord. Here’s an example:
o Then repeat the process twice to arrive back to the first
chord (eg, here could be D major to F major, then to C
major) on bar 13.
o With this skeleton of 13 chords, write a piece for piano /
keyboard or four similar instruments/voices that explores
the effect of morphing between these harmonies. Just
texture/accompaniment, you don’t need to add a main
melody.
o Tempo/Metre: your choice
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3. Modal alternation
o Pick a tonal centre and write out triads across all the scale
degrees in both Dorian and Lydian modes based on the
same key centre, eg, on D:
o Using this palette of harmonies, create a section of music
(approx. 8 bars) for piano/keyboard or guitar or for three
similar instruments/voices in one of the modes . . .
o . . . and then repeat exactly the same passage but
adapted for the other mode in the same key centre (so
your piece will move from Dorian to Lydian, or the other
way around)
o Tempo/Metre: your choice
4. Harmonic series
o Using this series of notes from a low C, create a short
piece that explores the sound of the harmonic series.
o Write for an instrument that will sustain the low C as a
drone throughout, eg a cello, and one or two or three
instruments above this that explore the resonance of
this sound.
o If you can, try to make the piece float outside the sense
of a steady pulse and metre.
o You can write melodically, but try to focus on the
harmonic quality of this ascending sequence.
o Aim for about a minute duration.
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