CEU REHARMONIZATION RANDY FELTSINTRODUCTION Reharmonization is the musical equivalent of a new paint job on an old car. When you reharmonize a tune, you provide new color to it by altering the harmonic progression that supports its melody. Whether you write jingles, film scores, or soundtracks for video games, you will find ideas in this book that you can use. If you are a band or choir director you will find simple, effective ideas to update the songs in your next show. If you play solo piano or guitar, you can use these concepts to develop new arrangements of the songs in your set lst. Composers and arrangers can use these ideas to easily create harmonic variations of their themes. | have refined the techniques and concepts presented in this book during my iwenty-four years as an instructor of jazz harmony at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass Though this book was written for use in the reharmonization techniques course at Berklee, it is designed fo help players of any musical background understand the rehormonization process. Instrumental virtuosity is not required! Throughout my musical career, | have built upon concepts from jazz and pop music theory to create what | call a “musical toolbox.” Each theory concept represents a tool. Once you understand how the fools work, you can use them fo create new chord changes. These new chord changes act as harmonic “beds” that support melodic material, They can alter the mood of the original melody in creative and interesting ways, and may be used in many musical styles Waar You NEED To Know To get the most from the book, you must be familiar with common chord symbols and their inversions, and you should be able to play music notated in lead sheet format on guitar or keyboard. You will also need to know how fo read music in both treble and bass clefs and be familiar with key signatures of all the major and minor keys. How To Use THzs Book The first twelve chapters present reharmonization techniques that work well with traditional, mainstream pop and jazz. The last four chapters point fo more recent film music and contemporary jazz styles. Many of the chapters are narrow in focus and cover a specific concept that is easy to understand. Other chapters are broader in focus and discuss techniques that may require substantial practice to master. IF you have never reharmonized melodies or used music theory to explore the potential ‘of musical phrases, | suggest that you first read and do the exercises for the first five chapters. Then, practice these new ideas with music in your repertoire until you feel comfortable applying these concepts. Once you have some experience, check out the later chapters, which combine multiple conceptsIf you have a lot of reharmonization/harmonic experience, you may want to jump directly to chapters 13-16 and then backtrack to the ideas found in the earlier chapters. ach chapter contains exercises that will help you apply each reharmonization concept. ‘As you complete the exercises in each chapter, be sure to check out the reference examples in the back ofthis book fo see if you're on the right tack, Onwarp! This book presents a series of starting points for exploration. The reharmonization techniques presented work most successully ater @ period of experimentation, reflection, cand feedback from other musicians. ABouT THE AUTHOR Randy Felts is an Associate Professor in the Harmony Department at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He has taught atthe college since 1976. He performs regularly on saxophone, flute, and Synthophone in contex!s ranging from classic 1960s rock to original jazz and pop music. Randy is the U.S. representative for Softwind Instruments, manufacturers of the Synthophone, an alto saxophone that allows the performer to play sounds contained in any MiDIcapable keyboard or sound module using normal saxophone fingerings, breath, and lip control.