Let’s Play Music #2
Playing Music By Numbers
Counting to Seven
Believe it or not, but a lot of music on the radio only uses a handful of chords. Your favorite song may only need a handful of elements to sound great. Any more than that and the song may feel too busy. In this respect, song writing is a lot like painting. Too many, or too few, colors can keep a piece from conveying the artist’s ideas.
In this article we’ll go over the basics of Functional Harmony, which is fancy term that can be thought of as, “playing music by number.” We will take the seven chords that we learned in the previous article and put them into three groups. Each group has a function and can help us to create great harmonies, hence the term “Functional Harmony.” But first we should talk about two important numbers that help us to better understand how this works.
The Fourth and the Seventh
The note of the C Major Scale are C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. These notes also represent degrees of the scale, which are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. Each degree has a technical name as well, but the only two we need to focus on right now are degrees 4 and 7. The 4th degree is called the Sub-Dominant and the 7th degree is called the Leading Tone. We don’t need to get into the meaning of each name, but we do need to know how we can use these degrees to place our chords into groups.
If a chord does not contain the 4th degree note, then it is in the Tonic chord group. Tonic chords can be thought of as being “at rest” or “home”.
If a chord contains the 4th degree note, but not the 7th degree note, then it is a Pre-Dominant chord. These chords are leading us either back to Tonic or to the next group.
If a chord contains both the 4th and 7th degree notes, then it is a Dominant chord. These chords lead us back to Tonic and help us to resolve, or complete, melodic phrases.
Think of it like this, Tonic chords give us a sense of where we are. It’s home, familiar, resting, at peace, and resolved. When we are ready to leave “home” we start our journey and step on the Pre-Dominant road. This path takes us away from our safe place and toward something on our journey. When we get to a tense moment or a profound event we arrive at the Dominant chords. These chords call for resolution and want us to go home to regain a sense of rest. Now let’s start using some of these chords so we can hear this in context.
The chart above shows the same chords we had before, but with a fourth note added. This fourth note is each chord’s “seventh” degree. If you’re new to music, then notice how each chord is built by skipping notes. A CMaj7 (C Major 7) is built by skipping the notes D, F, and A. The same is true for chords like Dm7 (D Minor 7), G7 (G Dominant 7), and Bm7b5 (B Minor 7 flat 5 or B Half-Diminished).
Using Each Group
So, what do we even play? How do we know what chords to go to? And just as important, how do the pros use Functional Harmony? While there’s an almost limitless combination of notes and chords, let’s stick to just the chords shown above and think of them in the following three groups: Tonic, Pre-Dominant, and Dominant. While there are quite a few new names for chords, the pattern of skipping notes remains the same and is shown in the chart below so that you can reference all of this in one image.
By using these four-note chords we can organize the chords into our three groups. CMaj7, Em7, and Am7 do not contain the 4th degree note of F, so they are Tonic chords. Dm7 and FMaj7 contain the 4th degree note, but not the 7th degree note of B making them Pre-Dominant chords. G7 and Bm7b5 contain both the 4th and 7th degree notes, so they are Dominant chords.
Now let’s use them!
Music is a lot like speaking, we start with an idea and move toward the ending of a statement. Our musical statement is a Tonic. We can start at any chord but moving toward a Tonic will help us to make musical sentences or phrases. Let’s try out a few examples.
Example 1:
Am is one of our Tonic chords and is “at rest”. When we go to our Dm we use a Pre-Dominant chord. This allows us to add some tension. It’s not a lot of tension, but it does keep us from being at rest so it feels like we are going somewhere. The third chord is G, which is a Dominant chord. This adds more tension and calls for some resolution to our musical sentence. We can give resolution and end our musical thought by going to another Tonic chord like C. This progression of chords is common in smooth jazz compositions.
Example 2:
This example is just like the first one, but it swaps out the Minor Pre-Dominant chord (Dm) for the Major Pre-Dominant chord (FMaj7 and F). The tension build-up remains, but now the tension starts building within a Major chord (FMaj7 and F). This extra Major chord also adds some brightness, which is why many Pop hits use this type of chord progression.
Example 3:
This example starts with Em. This is a Minor chord that functions as a Tonic and easily moves up a half-step to FMaj7, which is a great Pre-Dominant chord. In this example I used FMaj7 #11. This may seem like a complicated chord, but all we are doing is taking an FMaj7 chord and adding in the #11 degree, which in this case is the note B. The FMaj7 #11, which uses the notes F-A-C-E-B, has some extra tension due to that B note and causes it to function as a Dominant chord. We then take that tension and make is stronger by reorganizing the notes F and B into a Dominant Bm7b5 chord, which is B-D-F-A.
Think of it like taking the five notes of FMaj7 #11, moving the notes C and E towards each other to create the note D, and then reorganizing the order of the notes to create the Bm7b5 chord.
We then finish this progression by going back to the Tonic chord of CMaj7. Using Tonic, Pre-Dominant, and Dominant groups can help you to control and direct tension or a lack of tension in a song. As you use chords in this way, you can modify the chords like we did with the FMaj7 #11 to add more tension. But what about decreasing tension?
Example 4:
Just like the other progressions, we start with a Tonic chord. From the Am Tonic chord we move to the next bar which contains G and F. This takes the Dominant G chord and quickly moves down to F as our Pre-Dominant chord to release just some of the tension from our Dominant chord. The next bar contains Dm and Dm6. Dm is another Pre-Dominant chord, but Dm6 uses the notes D-F-B. Since the notes F and B are our 4th and 7th degree notes, the Dm6 chord functions as a Dominant chord that then releases all of its tension to CMaj7 as a Tonic.
In this progression, we use the functions of Tonic, Dominant, Pre-Dominant, Pre-Dominant, Dominant, and Tonic. You do not need to go in any order when creating chord progressions, but by grouping your chords by function you control the tension. This becomes even clearer in the second half of this example which has a melody to accompany the chords.
Listening For Tension In Other Songs
A popular song like “Yesterday” by the Beatles is in the key of F and has some borrowed chords, so grouping the chords of this song might be difficult for people that are new to music. Without focusing on chords, notes, or degrees we can listen for the tension. The song's first verse starts with the lyric "Yesterday…" which is Tonic. There is no tension. The song then progresses to "all my troubles seemed so far away." By the time we get to "far" we have tension built up that is then released on "away". The next line builds up the tension on the word "look" in "Now it looks as though they're here to stay" and releases it again on the word "here". The last part of this verse goes, "Oh, I believe in yesterday." The word "believe" is sung over a tension chord and then "yesterday" is sung over a Tonic chord.
Next time you are listening to the radio, try to listen for the build-up and release of tension between Tonic and Dominant chords. If may not be clear as to where the tension is in a song so if it feels like it is not tense, yet is clearly not "at rest", then you may be at a Pre-Dominant chord. There's an almost limitless number of possibilities for chord progressions. The important thing is to listen for the tension and how it is used.
Review And What To Practice
From our first lesson we learned about the chords of the C Major Scale, which are C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, and Bm b5. Now we have added the same chords with their own seventh degree notes, which are CMaj7, Dm7, Em7, FMaj7, G7, Am7, and Bm7b5. We have already practiced numbering our chords so that C or CMaj7 is our first chord and Bm b5 or Bm7b5 is our seventh chord.
Since Functional Harmony relies on the 4th and 7th degree notes to help us place chords into groups, we will focus on those notes in our practice. Chords 1, 3, and 6 (C, Em, and Am) are Tonic. Chords 2 and 4 (Dm and F) are Pre-Dominant. Chords 5 and 7 (G and Bm b5) are Dominant. The first thing to practice is playing those chords and listening for the tension in each group as you move towards a Tonic chord like C.
The next thing to practice is to listen for these groups of chords in your favorite songs and songs on the radio or your streaming service. You do not need to know what chords or notes are being used. Just listen for the tension and release of that tension. This will help you to figure out chords and even songs by ear later as you study music. This may be your first step in a process called Ear Training, where we listen for specific notes and intervals so that we can identify parts of a song. This will also help you out when you start to write your own songs. Knowing where to place tension is a valuable tool in the world of music.
With all of this said, it's important to take your time. There is no rush in learning something. Enjoy the ride and practice every day. Even five minutes can make a world of difference. Thanks for reading and have fun!
Basic Functional Harmony in C Major
