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Another topic for Harmony describes both the interactions of multiple simultaneous notes (chords) as well as the composer sequence of different chords, which is ''arrangement''called a <u>chord progression</u>. Arrangement describes applying some musical idea into Harmony often becomes synonymous with the chords that an accompaniment instrument plays, but it's important to realize this is only a selection part of instrumentsharmony. For example, if you were arranging a piece for flute, piano, and bass, you would likely have The interaction of all the flute play the melodyinstruments, the piano including those playing chordsmelody as well as accompaniment, and the bass usually playing the root is what truly forms harmony. But while melody is concerned with every note of the chords, harmony is only concerned with larger chord changes. Naturally, While a melody is usually given may have quite a higher-pitch than the other instrumentsfew different notes per measure, and the root note of generally there is only one or two perceived chords is usually played in the lowest-frequenciesper measure. We could come up with different arrangements that are harmonically equivalent; howeverconsider harmony slower than melody, they would likely be less enjoyable to listen or at least requiring greater time for our minds toperceive it.
→Harmony
When different notes are combined, they produce different waveforms. Two different notes played simultaneously is known as an <u>interval</u>. Three or more is known as a <u>chord</u>. Some intervals and chords are perceived as being more harmonic than others. This is driven by the ratio of the fundamental frequencies involved. We have already mentioned that a 4th interval is 4/3 higher than the base frequency. A 5th interval is 3/2 the base frequency. Basically, the simpler the ratio between the frequencies can be represented, the more harmonic the two notes are. The simplest ratio is an <u>octave</u> - which contains 2x (2/1) the original pitch.
Because the octave is so harmonic, it is treated harmonically equivalent. Once the octave is reached, the note names repeat, and for harmonic purposes they are treated identically. In common Western music, there are only 12 possible notes in one octave. And most music only uses 7 of those notes in any particular musical idea. A Such limited set sets of notes is are known as a <u>scalescales</u>, which drives the possible harmonyharmonic possibilities. This does not mean the composer/performer is strictly limited to those fundamental frequencies. It is simply used to provide an easily-understood framework to build upon, like tempo. Later we will explore why Western music uses the 12 tones per octave and discuss common intervals, chords, and progressions.
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