WELCOME
This is a course in tonal harmony, and in how it came apart, taught by six composers who shaped it: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Debussy and Schoenberg. Each teaches from his own century, in his own voice, and they do not always agree. That is part of the lesson.
The aim is simple: to hear why chords move the way they do, to write four-part harmony yourself, and to recognize each master's language when you hear it.
Lessons teach, page by page: read, listen, then try it.Practice gives you eighteen writing challenges, judged by all six masters.Ear Training and Analysis train you to hear and name what you write.Workshop is free play: any tune, harmonized six ways, and new passages from each master.
Start with Bach's first lesson, or press ▶ CONTINUE under the tabs. Tap any heading below for the details.
Lessons
Choose a teacher under CHOOSE YOUR TEACHER . His lessons appear as cards, in the order he would teach them.
Each lesson is a row of pages: read, hear, quiz, write, build. Use the chips or the arrows to move between them. Solved pages turn green, and your progress is saved in this browser.
On a write page, pick a voice, tap the staff where its note goes, or play it on the keyboard, which follows the selected voice's range. Fine-tune with ▲ ▼ ♯ ♭ ♮ or the arrow keys. CHECK asks the master to grade it.
Tap the dialog box (or NEXT ▼ ) to hear the rest of what the master is saying.
Practice: eighteen challenges
Eighteen challenges, at least two from each master: from a blank page, figured bass and secondary dominants to the Tristan chord and all twelve notes. Each opens a four-part score for you to write: pick a voice (S A T B), tap the staff or play the keyboard, adjust with ▲ ▼ ♯ ♭ ♮.
In the open challenges ◀ ▶ move to the previous or next chord, and ▶ on the last one opens a new chord after it; + NOTE adds a chord (a copy of the one before, ready to change), ✕ removes it, DURATION sets its length, and TIE holds a note over from the chord before, which is how a suspension is written.
CHORD ENTRY writes a whole chord at once: choose a quality (MAJ, MIN, AUG, DIM · MAJ7, 7, MIN7, ø7, °7), choose what is in the bass (5/3, 6, 6/4 for triads; 7, 6/5, 4/3, 4/2 for sevenths), then press the root on the keyboard. The four voices are placed for you, moving as little as possible from the chord before, with sevenths falling and leading tones rising. It+6, Fr+6 and Ger+6 are built in the key with one press. Change the quality or inversion afterward and the selected chord is rewritten.Every challenge is a fresh example in a random key. NEW EXAMPLE deals another; START OVER resets the current one. ANSWER shows one model solution, judged by all six masters at once with a chord-by-chord analysis; play it against yours and tap a master to hear his full opinion of it.
The panel on the left gives a tip from the master you are working with, or for the challenge you are on. NEXT TIP gives another.
CHECK THE GOAL tells you whether you met the challenge. SHOW YOUR VERSION TO any master: he praises what fits his teaching, objects to what does not (tap a line to see the chord), and offers HEAR HIS VERSION : your melody set his way, to compare with yours.
Ear Training and Analysis
Ear Training : four drills (cadences, chord quality, inversions, major or minor), each with levels. The notes stay hidden until you answer; then the score and an explanation appear. Your record and best streak are kept.Analysis : a passage without labels. Pick a chord box, then its numeral and figure (and, at level 5, an applied target or augmented sixth). CHECK marks every chord; HINT names the notes, root and bass.
Workshop: the same tune, six masters
Pick a TUNE , a KEY , a SPACING and a SOUND . "A new tune in 3/4" is invented on the spot, in triple time, so Brahms can show his hemiola.
HARMONIZE IT AS : the master sets the tune in his own style, in full texture (suspensions, passing tones, pulses, dynamics), and explains it underneath. Notes tagged LESSON point back to his lessons.BARE CHORDS / FULL TEXTURE switches between his block chords, one per melody note, and the finished version.EDIT VOICES lets you change the alto, tenor and bass of the block chords. EDIT THE TUNE lets you change the melody, and the master harmonizes your version. SHOW YOUR VERSION TO asks any master to critique it. RESET undoes your edits.✎ Write your own (in the TUNE list) opens the note writer: tap the staff to place a note, or play it on the two-octave keyboard; choose sixteenth, eighth, quarter, half or whole (DOT for dotted values) and the meter; adjust with ▲ ▼ ♯ ♭ ♮; + NOTE adds one, ✕ removes one. Press HARMONIZE or any master's portrait. Your melody is saved in this browser, and changing the KEY transposes it. EDIT THE TUNE opens any tune in the same writer.NEW SETTING asks for another harmonization.
Workshop: a lesson from
Each master composes a new passage in his own technique. Every press gives a different one. BARE CHORDS strips it back to the harmony alone.
Notes tagged LOOK explain the technique bar by bar. Notes tagged NCT list every non-chord tone in the bar and where it resolves.
Keeping your work
↶ UNDO and ↷ sit at the start of the editing bar; Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac) and Ctrl+Shift+Z work too.SAVE MINE in a challenge, or SAVE in the Workshop, keeps the piece under MY PIECES on the Practice page, in this browser. DOWNLOAD PNG saves the score as an image.The computer keyboard plays the on-screen keys: A W S E D F T G Y H U J K are one octave from the lowest C shown, Z and X switch octave, the arrows move and adjust the selected note, Backspace erases it.
The bar under the tabs shows your progress; ▶ CONTINUE takes you to the next unfinished lesson.
Reading the score
Tap any note in the analysis list to highlight its place in the score. The gold column follows playback.
SPEED , beside PLAY, scales every master's tempo from 40% to 200%; the readout shows the resulting quarter-note beat. Change it while playing and the music picks up from the current chord. 1× returns to the master's own tempo. Each master alternates slow and quick passages.Non-chord tones are circled in orange with a short tag. In Schoenberg's music the purple numbers give each note's place in the row. See the Glossary for every symbol.
Secrets
Nine things are hidden in the app: a seventh teacher, six melodies that mean more than they seem, a tavern and a diploma. The Secrets tab above gives a riddle for each and keeps track of what you have found. Start over
Erase your lesson progress, your saved melody and your place, and begin again with Bach.
RESET ALL PROGRESS
NOTATION
4/4 · 3/4 · 6/8 Time signature: beats per bar over the beat's note value. 6/8 is two beats of three eighths. 3/2 is three half notes; Brahms uses it to write a hemiola openly.
Tie ⌒ One note held across two written values or across a bar line; it is not struck again.
Dot Adds half the note's value: a dotted half lasts three beats.
Note values Whole (4 beats in 4/4), half (2), quarter (1), eighth (½), sixteenth (¼).
Beam Joins eighths and sixteenths that fall within one beat; sixteenths get a second beam.
Fermata 𝄐 Hold the note or chord longer than written.
Bracket Above the staff: names a passage (a phrase, a hemiola, a row form).
SATB Soprano, alto (top staff); tenor, bass (bottom staff). Stems up for soprano and tenor, down for alto and bass.
Close / open Spacing of the upper three voices: within an octave (close) or wider (open).
CHORD ENTRY (PRACTICE)
Root key The key you press is the chord's root, not its bass note. The Roman numeral then depends on the key you are in.
MAJ · MIN · AUG · DIM Triad quality: major, minor, augmented, diminished.
MAJ7 Major seventh chord: major triad plus a major seventh (G B D F♯).
7 Dominant or major-minor seventh: major triad plus a minor seventh (G B D F). In C it is V7; in G the same chord on the tonic is V7/IV, because F♮ makes it the dominant of C.
MIN7 · ø7 · °7 Minor seventh (A C E G), half-diminished (B D F A), fully diminished (B D F A♭).
5/3 · 6 · 6/4 Which triad member is in the bass: root, third, fifth.
7 · 6/5 · 4/3 · 4/2 Which seventh-chord member is in the bass: root, third, fifth, seventh. Root G with 7 and 6/5 gives B in the bass: V6/5 in C, V6/5/IV in G. Root G with MAJ7 and 6/5 in G is IM6/5.
It+6 · Fr+6 · Ger+6 Built in the current key with one press: ♭6 in the bass, ♯4 above it, plus 1 (Italian), 1 and 2 (French), or 1 and ♭3 (German).
Voicing The four voices are placed for you, moving as little as possible from the chord before, sevenths falling and leading tones rising. Adjust any note afterward with ▲ ▼ ♯ ♭.
TIE ⁀ Holds the selected note over from the chord before: the way to write a suspension.
DYNAMICS
ppp · pp · p Very very soft, very soft, soft.
mf · f · ff Moderately loud, loud, very loud.
sf Sforzando: a sudden accent on one note or chord. Beethoven puts it on his crisis chord.
cresc. · dim. Crescendo, growing louder; diminuendo, growing softer.
subito p Suddenly soft.
ROMAN NUMERALS
I · ii · V The chord built on that scale degree. Upper case is major, lower case minor.
° · ø · + Diminished, half-diminished (diminished triad with a minor seventh), augmented.
7 A seventh chord in root position (V7).
6 · 6/4 Triad inversions: third in the bass (I6), fifth in the bass (I6/4).
6/5 · 4/3 · 4/2 Seventh-chord inversions: third, fifth, seventh in the bass. 4/2 is often shortened to 2, and 6 is short for 6/3.
M7 · 7 · m7 Seventh-chord qualities: major seventh (major triad, major seventh), dominant or major-minor seventh (major triad, minor seventh), minor seventh.
ø7 · °7 Half-diminished (diminished triad, minor seventh) and fully diminished (diminished triad, diminished seventh).
V/V · vii°7/V Secondary (applied) chord: the dominant or leading-tone chord of the chord after the slash.
♭VI · ♭III · iv Borrowed from the parallel minor (modal mixture).
N6 Neapolitan sixth: the major triad on the lowered second degree, usually with its third in the bass.
It+6 · Fr+6 · Ger+6 Italian, French, German augmented sixths. ♭6 in the bass and ♯4 above it spread outward by half step to the dominant.
I6/4 (cadential) The cadential six-four: a dominant in disguise; the sixth and fourth above the bass fall to the fifth and third.
Q: 4,+4 Schoenberg's quartal chords: stacked perfect (4) and augmented (+4) fourths, bottom to top.
CADENCES
PAC Perfect authentic cadence: V to I, both in root position, tonic in the soprano.
IAC Imperfect authentic cadence: V to I with an inversion or the tonic not on top.
HC Half cadence: the phrase stops on V.
Deceptive V goes to vi (or ♭VI) instead of I. A refused cadence.
Plagal IV (or minor iv) to I: the Amen.
Picardy third A minor-key piece ending on a major tonic.
Hemiola Two bars of three beats regrouped as three groups of two, so the cadence broadens across the bar line.
NON-CHORD TONES (orange circle)
P Passing tone: moves by step between two chord tones, in one direction.
N Neighbor tone: steps away from a chord tone and returns to it.
4–3 · 9–8 · 7–6 · 6–5 Suspension: a note held over from the previous chord (preparation), dissonant against the new bass (suspension), resolving down by step (resolution). The numbers are intervals above the bass before and after.
7–8↑ Retardation: like a suspension, but it resolves up.
sus A suspension that slides down a half step (Wagner's chromatic resolution).
App Appoggiatura: a dissonance struck on the beat, usually approached by leap, resolving by step.
Esc Escape tone: steps away from the chord and leaps to the next note.
Ant Anticipation: a note of the next chord sounded early.
Ped Pedal point: a held bass note while the harmony above moves away from it.
hold A note held into a chord it does not belong to and left without a stepwise resolution.
* Free dissonance: does not resolve by step.
TWELVE-TONE (purple numbers)
1 … 12 Each note's position in the row.
P- · I- · R- · RI- Prime, inversion, retrograde, retrograde inversion of the row, named by first pitch class (P-D starts on D).
Aggregate All twelve pitch classes sounded.
TAGS IN THE ANALYSIS
CHORD What a chord is and why it is there.
LESSON A technique from the master's own lessons, applied to your tune.
LOOK A point to notice in a master's new passage.
NCT Every non-chord tone in the bar, its type, and its resolution.