Adding Harmony to a Melody

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Say you have a melody, and you would

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like to add alto, tenor, and bass to it:

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First, determine the key of the melody. The one above seems to be in C major.
For now, we will keep things simple and make the following restriction: we are & www w
only allowed to use root-position I and V triads:
C+ I V

Once we have determined the key, under each
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melody note, write the Roman numeral of the

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chord that it belongs to:

C+ I V I

Add the bass notes. Because we've &c
restricted ourselves to only root-position

I and V, our bass line will be very dull.
Don't worry about this for now. We will
fix it later. ?c
C+ I V I

Add alto and tenor to the first chord.
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There may be more than one possible

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voicing. Here's one:

I V I

David Clenman 2009

2 Adding Harmony to a Melody

Most of the time, only one of three possibile situations occurs after this:

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1. Both the chord and the melody stay the same:

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I V I

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2. The chord stays the same, but the melody

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moves up or down to the next note of the chord:

I V I

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3. The chord changes:

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I V I

There are precise ways to deal with each situation. These are explained on the following pages.
Learn them well.
 Adding Harmony to a Melody 3

1. Both the chord and the melody stay the same

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There are two ways to handle this.
You can do either of the following:

i. Whatever voicing you started with, simply repeat it:

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I
OR

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ii. If the first voicing is close, make the second one

open. If the first voicing is open, make the second
one close: ?c
I

2. The chord stays the same, but the melody moves up or down to the next note of the chord.

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There are two ways of dealing with this.

i. Make the alto and tenor jump along with

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the soprano, in the same directon:
(I call this Follow the Soprano or FTS.)

ii. The soprano trades pitches with another voice,
usually in contrary motion. This is called &
Voice Exchange. In this example, the soprano

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had the note C and moved to E. It so happens
the tenor had the note E, so it trades pitches
with the soprano and moves to E.

3. The chord changes.

See the handout entitled "Basic Rules of Voice Leading."