Harmonizing a Song
Harmonizing a song requires working out the chord arrangement against the melody of a song. The challenge when doing this is to RE-harmonize the song, that is, to create a set of modified chord progressions that fit the melody and spirit of the song, yet take some different paths toward the eventual
resolution to the key center of the song. If you simply use the progression of the song, you will often get something that is quite bland, such as the chord/melody arrangement below of the standard "I Can't Give You Anything But Love".
G6 Gmaj7 Bbdim7 Am7 D13b9
1_____________________________________________________________________________
2_______________________________________________________________6______6(6____
3____7_____7L___________7_____7L___________7___________________________6______
4____7_____7______7_____7_____7______7_____7_______7______12___________6______
5____7_____7______7_____7_____7______7_____7(5_____7(5____12___________6(5____
6____7_____7______7_____7_____7______7_____7(6_____7(6____12__________________
7_________________7__________________7_____________7______12__________________
8_____________________________________________________________________________
9_____________________________________________________________________________
10____________________________________________________________________________
I can't give you an -- y thing but love ba -- by
Notice how the chord/melody follows the chord progression perfectly. I consider this an uninteresting way of harmonizing a song. Now consider the arrangement below.
1_____________________________________________________________________________
2_______________________________2__________________________________5(6____6(6_
3____7_____7L____________7______2_____4_____5(7_____4______________5______6___
4_________________7______7____________4R____5(7_____________10(7___5______6___
5________________________7____________4_____5______________________5(5____6(5_
6____7_____7______7(6____7(6________________5(6_____4(6_____10(6______________
7_____________________________________________________________________________
8_______________________________2_____________________________________________
9_________________7______7__________________5_______4(5_____10________________
10___7_____7__________________________4___________________________________6(5_
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
Notice the movement of the root, which is the lowest note of each chord (EXCEPT chord 10 - more on that later). There are 11 chords, there are 10 roots. These roots form a motion of G,G,C,C,B,E,Bb,Bb,Eb,Ab. Since they are doubled up, the actual motion is G,C,B,E,Bb,Eb,Ab, which resolves to the next line of the song where the progression starts with a G chord again. What we did was to use the bass to find a way through the song to get from the first G chord of the first line to the first G chord of the next line. The progression goes through chromatic moves
(C,B), tri-tone moves (E,Bb) or cycle's
of fifths (G,C and Bb,Eb,Ab) where the final Ab note provides a perfect resolution to the next G chord. Then all we did was find melody notes to go with the bass and fill in the 3rd and 7th notes of the chords. It's not terribly important when harmonizing the song to know which 7th chord to use
(m7, m7b5, dominant, etc.).
As long as the bass provides proper motion and the melody agrees, the rest can be filled in according to your sensibilities. For example, chord (5) is a Bm7, followed by an E7 (6), which forms a
ii-V within the progression (always good to have those). However, if you press pedal 8, and play string 7, now you would have an altered dominant B7#9, which would also work. So,
in summary, you should establish the motion of the bass, pick out the melody, and fill in the 3rd's and 7th's. Chord 10 doesn't have a root. It's a fill chord to cover the chromatic note in the melody, and one way to cover it is to play the same chord form as the one that follows, just a fret lower, and leave out the bass note so that the bass motion remains correct.
Just for semantics, the chords are named as follows: (1) = G, (2) = Gmaj7, (3) = C7, (4) = C7, (5) = Bm7, (6) = E7, (7) = Bb13#11, (8) = Bbdim7, (9) = Eb7#11, (10) = C#13b9 (no root), (11) = Ab7b9#9
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