Basic Chromatic Harmony

Chromatic harmony course.

The Basic Chromatic Harmony course consists of 20 episodes. The first 13 are shown in the key of C major. They take you through examples of using the V7 of each diatonic chord. You see examples of V7 of I, V7 of ii, V7 of iii etc. You then move onto the use of the fully diminished chord, you are shown how these can replace the V7 chord or be used in addition to the V7 chord when moving to each of the diatonic chords. In episode 12 you are introduced to the use of the augmented chord and how this can be used to move to the diatonic chords in C. Episode 13 is a summary of the first 12 episodes. In episodes 14 to 16 you start looking at C minor and how to use v7 chords and V7 chords to tonicise chords in C harmonic minor. In episode 17 you look at dominant chord chains around the circle of fifths. In episode 18 you look at Italian, German and French augmented sixth chords in C major resolving to the V chord. In episode 19 you look at how the augmented sixth chords can be used in minor to resolve to the I chord with 5 in the bass. In episode 20 you look at the Neapolitan sixth chord combining major and minor. In all episodes you are only given the chord movement, it up to the user to make them musical by improvising over them, Robert is very good at this but it is up to you to come up with your own ideas how to do this by syncopation, arpeggiation and rhythmic ideas to make them musical. All the music notation is only given in C major and minor, if you want to have it in other keys you would have to do this yourself. There are enough exercises to keep you busy for a very long time in this one key, if you transpose them to all 12 keys then there is a lot of work.

Helpful, practical guidance on the subject

Great for those of us that know music but don't read music.

Hard-to-find advanced music theory

I feel like I found a gold mine when I found the Basic Chromatic Harmony class. I understood secondary dominants, but I had no idea how many more techniques could introduce some chromatic interest into a chord progression. The chord progression examples can be used, modified, orchestrated, or elaborated on. I thoroughly enjoyed this class.