Path

What to study before Bossa nova harmony

Extensions as the default, frequent modal borrowing, and voice leading that hardly ever leaps. Below, the concepts that come before, in the order in which one explains the next. Signed in, you see the same path minus what you already hold: your path.

Properties of sound
The four properties every musical sound has at once: duration, intensity, pitch and timbre.
Level 0has practice
Note
The seven pitch names, and the sign that puts one of them on the page.
Level 1
Tone and semitone
The smallest distance Western music uses, and the whole tone built from two of them.
Level 1has practicelesson Notes, semitones and the rule of names (Harmony for people who play)
Interval
The distance between two sounds, counted by note names, melodic or harmonic, simple or compound.
Level 1lesson Intervals, in number and quality (Harmony for people who play)
Interval quality
Perfect, major, minor, augmented and diminished: what separates two intervals that share a number.
Level 1has practicelesson Intervals, in number and quality (Harmony for people who play)
Triads
Three-note chords stacked in thirds, and the four qualities that result.
Level 2has practicelesson Four triads, and the third that decides (Harmony for people who play)
Seventh chords
The fourth note stacked on the triad, and the five qualities the repertoire actually uses.
Level 3has practicelesson Seventh chords, and the tritone that pulls (Harmony for people who play)
Major scale
Seven degrees built on a fixed sequence of tones and semitones, and the reference everything else is measured against.
Level 1has practicelesson The major scale is a formula (Harmony for people who play)
Diatonic harmony
The chords that arise from stacking thirds on each degree of a scale, and why each quality lands where it does.
Level 3has practicelesson The major harmonic field (Harmony for people who play)
Harmonic function
The role each degree plays — tonic, subdominant, or dominant — and the tension that moves one to the next.
Level 4lesson Seven chords, three roles (Functional harmony for people who play)
The II-V-I
Preparation, tension and rest in three chords: the most frequent sequence in popular music.
Level 4lesson The formula that repeats most (Functional harmony for people who play)
Key signatures
The fixed accidentals at the start of the staff, their invariable order, and the circle of fifths that organizes them.
Level 1lesson Key signatures, and the fixed order (Harmony for people who play)
Minor scales
The three forms of the minor scale — natural, harmonic, and melodic — and what each alteration solves.
Level 2has practicelesson Three minor scales, and one problem each (Harmony for people who play)
Modal interchange
Chords taken from the parallel key, changing a degree's colour without changing the centre.
Level 5lesson Borrowing from the parallel (Colour and change)
Extended chords
Ninth, eleventh and thirteenth: the stack of thirds carried on above the seventh.
Level 4lesson Colour, not structure (Chords beyond the triad)
Bossa nova harmony
Extensions as the default, frequent modal borrowing, and voice leading that hardly ever leaps.
Level 6lesson The same grammar, more vocabulary (Ear and genres)