In this introductory lecture to Part 7 of the Music Theory Comprehensive series, J. Anthony Allen outlines the roadmap for mastering harmonization. He begins by reviewing chord inversion names and their resolutions, then introduces figured‑bass notation as a Baroque‑era tool for determining appropriate chord choices. Allen explains how accidentals in figured bass alter pitch, and he demonstrates basic rules for establishing tonic and moving to predominant areas. The lesson also revisits phrasing concepts from the previous class, adding new elements to support logical chord placement. Throughout, he uses concrete examples—such as a root‑position D chord with a raised third and a second‑inversion G‑minor 6/4 chord—to illustrate voice‑leading practices like note doubling and melodic rhythm. The session culminates in a plan to apply these concepts to harmonize chorale melodies, with practice exercises promised for later. The tone is instructional and enthusiastic, aiming to make the harmonization process systematic and enjoyable.
Chapters
Root position chord built on D, but it's going to have a raised third. That's what that sharp is telling us. Then we have a root position G chord here it's going to be G minor, but root position a 6, 4. So this is a second inversion chord. So let's point out a couple things here. He used the same note. He doubled up on the same note in the same octave, remember? That's okay. We can do that also here. Might have tripped you up. So what happens here is the melody goes to an eighth note. Okay? So let's take figured bass and kind of distill it down to six. Basic rules. Okay, so here we go. If there's an accidental next to a number, raise or lower that pitch by one sense of drama that we're trying to create here. So we're going to hear tonic a whole bunch. We're going to establish tonic. Okay? Then we're going to move to this predominant area. We're going to feel like we're away from tonic, but we're not as far away as we can go. Now, I'm repeating the phrase here. So what I like to do is use the same chords I used over here. The notes are the same, right? So let's use the same harmony that tends to feel really good. Hey, everyone. Welcome to Music Theory, Part seven, harmonization. So what we're going to do in this one is. It's. It's actually really cool how. How we've got this set up. So we are going to. First, we're going to review our inversion names because we're going to need that. And it's all going to build on everything. So we're going to review our inversion names. We're going to talk about inversion resolutions. Then we're going to talk about figured base. Figured base is a thing that it's kind of hard to explain in one sentence, but basically it's kind of another notation system that we used in the Baroque period. And a little bit later, I think, to allow the keyboardist to sort of invent a harmonization. After we learn figured bass, we're going to go through and we're going to talk about this phrasing thing that we started talking about in the last class. But we're going to build on it a little bit. We're going to add a new element to it, and then we're going to get to harmonizing chorale melodies. So we're going to use all of those things. We're going to put them all together in order to make the harmonization process a little easier. Because if you think about it, what harmonization means is we've got a melody and we're going to add chords and everything to it. That's what harmonization is. So with a given melody, you could literally put any chord you can imagine with any note. So how do we know what chords to put with what note? We're going to use figured bass. We're going to use what we know about phrasing. We're going to use all of that in order to make it much more logical and easier to understand what chords can go where. So everything we do in this class is going to kind of culminate in that harmonization section. And then we're going to harmonize a couple melodies, play around with it a little bit, work with it, and then I'll give you a ton of stuff to practice with at the end. It's going to be a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it. We'll see you on the inside.
