HARMONIC EXPANSIONS

CHAPTER 2: NONHARMONIC TONES
2.1 Introduction

Listen to the video above. This excerpt is from No. 5 of 371 Chorale Harmonizations by Bach where this chorale has the German name, "An Wasserflussen Babylon".
• In Chapter Two the embellishing tones introduced in Chapter One, as well as other tones, will further expand the Fundamental Harmonic Progression. They will contribute to a rhythmically interesting sound and their dissonant tension and subsequent resolution will enhance the harmonic interest.
• However these "embellishing tones" will no longer have distant relations to other notes, as in pages 1.6 and 1.7. Instead, these tones will only relate to notes which immediately precede and follow them.
• With this more limited function they will be called nonharmonic tones.
• As in the Bach harmonization above, nonharmonic tones are simply notes that do not belong to the accompanying harmony.

The following video gives a general description of nonharmonic tones.

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