LEARN HOW TO IMPROVISE IN 15 MINUTES A DAY “HARMONIZING A MELODY” Leonardo Ciampa
D
URING MY unforgettable years with Yuko Hayashi, she laid the groundwork for future study in improvisa- tion. However, only later did I realize what she was
doing. And only decades after that did I realize how utterly precise her choices were. She taught me figured bass not on a whim, but because she clearly knew that Bach believed, “The thorough bass is the most perfect foundation of mu- sic,”1 and that he started his composition students on thor- ough bass.2 However, in her classic simplicity, Yuko said, “Baroque harmony, from the bottom up. Renaissance har- mony, fromthe top down.” And so, even before teaching me figured bass, she taughtmeRenaissance-style improvisation, which consisted not of putting harmonies over the bass but putting harmonies under the soprano. One ofmy favorite melodies is a German lullaby that is so
beautiful I wish I were born in Germany, just so that I could have been sung thismelody! I discovered only later that it is not a folk song by that greatest of all composers, Anonymous. We do know the composer: none other than Rinck.3
The Romantics loved the diminished-seventh chord because it can be resolved in an infinite number of ways.
Then the Romantics discovered that you could add any of the twelve bass notes to a diminished-seventh chord, and re- solve any of them in innumerable ways. You’ll find that each of these twelve chords can easily be resolved (though enhar- monic respellings might be necessary). In fact, some of these chords occur as early as Beethoven, if not earlier.
We’re now ready to try to harmonize our melody. The fol- lowing is consistent with the harmony of Rinck:
Any given note can be harmonized in infinite ways. In a ma- jor key, the note can be the root, third, fifth, minor seventh, or major seventh. Ditto for a minor key. That’s already ten possible chords that can be ascribed to one note.
Multiply that by the different inversions. Now we’re up to approximately 40 possible chords.
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THE AMERICAN ORGANIST
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