Musicianship: Tensions, Harmonic Function, and Modal Interchange

Overview

After a tremendous response from learners on Coursera, Berklee Online has created a Developing Your Musicianship specialization, and this course is the third course in the series. If you have a general understanding of music theory or if you have completed Developing Your Musicianship I and II, this course will continue to help you understand musical concepts, enabling you to create and perform contemporary music. Taught by Berklee College of Music professor George W. Russell, Jr., the course includes four lessons that delve into an intermediate level of harmony and ear training. The course will introduce you to new key signatures, and explore how they are constructed. You will continue to train your ear, learning to differentiate between the various intervals and chords that were explored in Developing Your Musicianship I and II. You will learn how to borrow chords from parallel tonalities (modal interchange), and how to write more common chord progressions. The course culminates with an assignment that asks you to compose and perform a composition using popular chord progressions. As with Developing Your Musicianship I and II, this course is designed to share the joy of creating music.

Syllabus

Welcome to Musicianship: Harmonic Function, Modal Interchange, and Tensions

Welcome to Musicianship: Musicianship: Harmonic Function, Modal Interchange, and Tensions (also known as Developing Your Musicianship III)! Here we will cover all the details about the course and what you'll need to know to get the most out of your course experience.

Lesson 1

This week, we will explore the key of Eb Major and B minor. We will also learn about chord tensions and harmonic function, or, in other words, how chords function within a tonal center. We will continue to develop our ears by aurally identifying chord progressions and chord qualities.

Lesson 2

This week, we will explore learn a new chord progression, the I II- V I. If you took Developing Your Musicianship, you may remember the VII-7b5, but this week, we'll learn about diminished chords. We'll also continue to train our ears to hear chord progressions and qualities.

Lesson 3

This week, we will explore the concept of modal interchange, or borrowing chords from a parallel tonality. We'll also learn a new chord progression that showcases modal interchange, the bVI bVII I progression. Finally, we will continue to train our ears to hear chord progressions and qualities.

Lesson 4

This last lesson will focus on preparing you for your final course project: writing and performing a 16-bar song. We will run through a brief overview of the concepts you have learned over the past few weeks that you will be able to apply when you complete your project. We will also learn about suspended chords and we will continue our ear training practice.