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Harmony Roman Numeral Analysis
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0:01
- Hi, I'm Gareth Green and in this video, we're going to be thinking about how to analyse music harmony. There are various different ways in which we can do this, but one of the methods is the Roman Numeral Analysis Method where we work out which key we're in and then we work out what are the chords for that key. So this piece of music we're looking at, which by the way, is a movement from a collection by the composer, Schumann, "Number 13" translates as "The Poet Speaks",
0:42
and it comes from Schumann's Opus 15, Scenes From Childhood. But we've got one sharp in the key signature there, so we're in the key of G major. We could be in the key of E minor, but actually, we're in the key of G major. So if that's the case, let's just think about what the chords are in the key of G major for a moment, because that will just help us in this task. So there's the F-sharp for G major, and the thing to do is to work out the scale for G major, G A B C D E F-sharp.
1:28
Well, obviously G at the top, I could complete the scale, but it's the same as the first note G. All we do then is put the third and the fifth above each of these notes. And you notice when you do this, you end up with three successive spaces or three successive lines, so it's good by just double checking you've got the right notes. So, we've got G, B, D based on the first note of G major scale, A, C, E, based on the second note, B, D, F-sharp, remember from the key signature based on
2:04
the third note, and so on. So, of course, I can call this G and I can call this A minor, and I can call this B minor, and I can call this C, and I can call this D, and I can call this E minor, and I can call this F-sharp diminished because that's how it works out. So G, A minor, B minor, C major, D major, E minor, F-sharp diminished, those are all the chords of G major. Or we can use Roman Numeral Analysis and say, that's chord I based on the first note of the scale,
2:48
chord II, based on the second note of the scale, chord III, based on the third note, and so on, chord IV, chord V, chord VI, and finally, chord VII. Now, it's always possible that those basic chords might be extended. In other words, we're building in thirds. We've got G, B, and D, what we call a root, a third, and a fifth. So your root is G in this case, B is the third above it, three notes above the G, D is the fifth above it, five notes above the G.
3:28
Say, I wanted to extend that chord by putting an extra note on the top, I would keep building the chord in thirds. So for example, if I want to put an F-sharp on the top of that first chord, that would be chord I7. It would be a a tonic seventh chord or a G major seven chord, you see how that works. So all you've got to do is add another third above the top note to make it a seventh chord and another third to make it a ninth chord, and so on. And we'll discover in this piece of music,
4:06
we've got some of those extended chords and we've also got some other interesting chords that we'll have a look at along the way. So the great thing about this piece is it's quite short and there are bits in the middle where we've just got a kind of bit of melodic decoration going on, so we don't have to worry too much about what's going on there. And we've got quite a bit of repetition because when you come to this second half of the piece you find actually we're kind of reworking
4:37
the first bit of it as well. So they're not too many chords to look at to get through the piece. So let's have a look and see if we can do some kind of analysis of the chords of this piece. Why do we want to do that? Well, it's quite helpful sometimes to know what the chords are in a particular piece of music and it helps you to think, that's where it's changing key, or that's where we've got one of these extended chords, or we've got an unusual chord that doesn't quite belong
5:08
to this basic system that we've just been through. And that might help us interpret the piece by drawing attention to those chords that are changing key or chords that are a little bit unusual, adding a bit of colour to things. Or it may be that we're a composer wanting to write a piece of music and we're just thinking, "Well, I'm never quite sure what to do about chords, "I always get stuck with the same chords. "How can I get kind of inspiration "from a great composer like Schumann?"
5:37
So even if I don't want to write in the same style as Schumann, I can kind of work out how to use these chords. Now, just before we get going with analysing the chords, let me just play you a little bit of "The Poet Speaks" and then you can hear what this piece is about.
6:25
And so on, that's just a flavour of what, this is quite a kind of reflective piece, isn't it? So, let's now see if we can work out the chords. One thing that's good about this piece from the point of view of this exercise is that it uses what we call block chords much of the time. It's literally just chord, chord, chord. Sometimes it starts to embellish, so when we get, later on you think, there's lots of extra little notes going on, quavers or eighth notes going on there.
6:55
And sometimes, that's makes it slightly difficult to see the chords. In this case it's not too bad, but we can see block chords and we can see these kind of broken chords later. So it's a chance to sort of engage with both things. Okay, well often, a piece of music starts on chord I because we need to make sure that the audience knows we're in G major, and that's an obvious place to start. Sometimes it starts on something else and in this case, it does. So the first thing is try and work out
7:26
what the notes are in the chord. Even though you've got three notes in a triad, well, you could double one of those notes and make it a four-note chord. You could have two notes doubled to make it a five-note chord. You get the idea. Well, when we look at this chord, we see there are actually four notes in it, but there are four different notes in it. So could it be that we've got one of these triads, but we've done one of these extensions that we were talking about a moment ago?
7:57
Well, let's say we can work out what's going on here. Well, we've got a D, then we've got an F-sharp, then we've got an A, then we've got C. So if I kind of organise that into a basic chord, we've got D, F-sharp, A, C. Well, does that look like anything we've got written here? Well, it does look a bit like this, doesn't it? Because this is D, F-sharp, A, but we've got C stuck on the top of it. So it's looking like we've added a seventh to chord V. So, then we can say that this is chord V
8:40
because it's got D, F-sharp and A in it, but it's also got that seven. So we'll call it V7. And then, there's one other thing we need to say. Is it in what we call a root position or is it in an inversion? Hmm, what do I mean by that? Well, if I was to take this chord V, if D is the lowest sounding note, so it's the bottom note of the chord, then I can say it's chord V or chord V7, in root position. If it's the same chord, but F-sharp is at the bottom, then I say it's in first inversion.
9:21
So if the third of the chord is at the bottom, it's using those D, F-sharp, A notes or D, F-sharp, A, C notes in this case. But F-sharp is at the bottom, the third of the chord is at the bottom, so it's in first inversion. If it's the same chord, but A's at the bottom, we say it's in second inversion. And with this added C that we're talking about here, if C was at the bottom, it will be in its third inversion. Now, when we look at this, we do find in fact, that C is at the bottom.
9:54
So it's chord V7 because it's using the notes of chord V. It's V7 because we've got that C on the top of it. But then, because that C is the bottom of the chord, well it's in its last inversion, it's third inversion. If it's in root position, you call that "a". If it's in first inversion, you call it "b", second inversion, you call it "c", third inversion, you call it "d". Now, if you've learnt this on a kind of US system, you might have come across root position as a "5-3" chord.
10:32
First inversion as a "6" chord, second inversion as a "6-4" chord, and the third inversion as a "7-5-3" chord. It's just another way of doing things. But V7d is telling us it's chord V with a seventh added, that C, and the C is in fact the bottom note. So it's in its third inversion, it's a V7d. Okay, let's continue our musical-chord detective work. So that's the first chord. So that's the chord we were talking about there. When we move on to the second chord, well, okay, what are these notes?
11:12
Well, we've got B in the bass, we've got G, we've got D, then we've got G again. So there are four notes, but in fact, there are only three different notes because we've got G twice. So can we organise that into a basic triad? We've got B and G and D. Can we get that into a basic triad? Well, we soon realise we are looking at chord I, the G, B, D chord. So, when we label this, we're going to say the notes are G, B, D, so that's chord I, so the first thing we do, label it chord I.
11:47
Then we can say which of those notes is in the bass? Because if the G's in the bass, then it's in root position, it's an "a" chord. And if it's an "a" chord, you don't write anything, you just assume it's "a" if you see nothing. If the B's in the bass, then it's in first inversion, so it's Ib. If D's in the bass, it's in second inversion and it's Ic. Well, B is in the bass, isn't it? This one here, so it's in first inversion, so it's Ib. Great. When we look at the third chord,
12:22
well, interesting when you think about these notes, they're the same notes that we had in the first chord. So it's looking like another one of these V7's again, isn't it? It's D, F-sharp, A, and it's got C as well. We've got D, F-sharp A, C, so it must be another one of these V7's, so let's mark that in. But this time, it's not a V7d because C is not in the bass, A is in the bass. So A is this note, isn't it? Which means it's the fifth in the bass, so it's in second inversion.
13:03
So this is a V7c chord. Aha! Okay, moving on. When we come to this chord, we think, "Hello, we've seen this one before." We saw it here. So even though the notes are slightly differently organised, aren't they? Because the top note there was G, the top note here is B, it's still G, B at the top and the bottom, D. So it's still chord I, isn't it? It hasn't got any extra notes in it. There's no sevenths or anything, so it's still a chord I and it's still a chord Ib
13:42
because whatever has been reorganised higher up the chord, we've still got the third of the chord in the bass. So it's chord I, first inversion. Hope you're getting the idea of this. Okay, brilliant, let's move on. Here's the next chord and let's see if we can work out what these notes are. We've got a C, we've got a G, we've got an E. So it's tempting to think, "Oh yeah, I think I can see that this is a C, E, G chord, but then, there's an A in it as well. So is it really a C, E, G chord?
14:16
Because if you put A above it, well, that's not going up in thirds, is it? Because that's only a second above that G. However, if you think the basic chord might be this, A, C, E, which explains three of the notes in that chord, but we've extended it by putting a G on the top. So you see, it's another third, isn't it? That makes more sense, doesn't it? So it's not really a chord IV with a sort of note that doesn't sit a third above the highest note. It's a chord II because that G does sit
14:51
a third above the highest note. Aha! So in other words, it's a II7. So let's commit to that, it's chord II, get the notes first, then say, "Mm, is there anything extra going on?" Yes, there's a seventh. And then, come back and ask yourself about the inversion. Well, what's in the bass? C is in the bass, that's the third of the chord. So it must be in first inversion, so call it II7b. Hopefully, you're getting the hang of this now, which is cool. Okay, now bear with me if I miss out
15:26
the next chord for a moment. We're going to come back to it, don't worry. Let's look at this chord next. Well, what can we see here? We've got D, we've got G, we've got D again, we've got B. So we've got three different notes. Which three notes are they? Which triad do they relate to? Well, you can see it's our old friend chord I again, isn't it? So this is definitely a chord I, but what's in the bass? It's D. So the fifth of the chord is in the bass, so it's in second inversion.
15:59
So what does that mean? It's chord I, second inversion, Ic. Brilliant. Now, sometimes, notes hang around. Do you see this note is hanging around for the rest of the bar. This note is hanging around for the rest of the bar. So when we look at these notes, we've got to think about, well, there's that note, there's that one, there's this one, and there's this one. So now we've got to say, "What are all these notes?" Well, we've got D, F-sharp, D, A, so D, F-sharp, A.
16:31
That's looking like our old friend, chord V, isn't it? So, this is moving from Ic to chord V. And because D is in the bass, it's in root position, so it's a Va chord because it's "a", you don't need to write anything, just leave it as a V. So that's what's going on there. Now, when we just go back in the light of that to this previous chord, you might think, "Well, what's all this about "because we've got C-sharp in it?" Now, C-sharp hasn't got anything to do
17:06
with the key of G major and we said that we're in the key of G major. So why is there a C-sharp involved in this thing? That's a bit weird, isn't it? It must be sort of hinting at another key. So can we work out what's going on in this chord? Well, we've got C-sharp in the bass, a third above that is E and we've got one of those, a third above that is G, and we've got one of those. And then, a third above that is B and we've got one of those.
17:40
So it's looking like one of these seventh chords, isn't it? But when we look at the lower three notes, C-sharp, E, G, is that a chord? Well, it's not a chord in G major, but could it be a chord in another key? And if so, which key? Well, we've got F-sharp in the key signature for G major. If we've got C-sharp, maybe we've moved to D major because D major's got F-sharp and C-sharp, in which case, C-sharp, E, G will be chord VII. And because we've got that B on the top of it,
18:16
it's chord VII7 in the key of D major. So it's a slightly more complicated one, isn't it? So this one is VII7 in the key of D, okay? See how we got to that one? C-sharp, E, G is chord VII, B is that extra third on the top, making it a VII7 and it's in the key of D major, one key away from G Major. Now, what on earth is that doing there? Well, Schumann's just trying to make it a bit more colourful. Doesn't want it to be too boring, so it gives a hint of another key.
18:59
And if you see what's going on, we've got this chord VII7 in the key of D, and we end up with a D chord over here because this is chord V in G, but it's also chord I in the key of D, D F-sharp A. So he's kind of hinting at D major back here and kind of following it with a D major chord with this other chord stuck in between, just to give us a little bit of colour. So that's what he's doing there. So this is the first phrase now done, we've got V7d, Ib, V7c, then Ib, then II7b,
19:42
these little notes are just a little ornament called a turn, then we've got this colour chord, you can hear this C-sharp in the bass is a bit unusual, and that's our VII7 in D. Then we're coming back to G, but we're going Ic and to V, and you hear that D major chord. So okay, we're back in G major. And then, Schumann says, "Oh, I think we'll go to another key." So let me tell you for nothing that he's spending his time in these next few bars going to the key of A minor.
20:15
Now, how do I know it's A minor? Well, in A minor, the key signature is nothing. It's related to C major. So, you notice he's got F-naturals, you know, there's an F-natural there, there's an F-natural there, there's an F-natural there. So what's that doing? It's cancelling the F-sharp in the key signature. When you're in a minor key, you quite often raise the seventh note. So if I'm in A minor, the seventh note is G. If we raise it, it becomes G-sharp. So what do we notice?
20:47
We've got all these F-naturals, but we've got G-sharp, G-sharp G-sharp G-sharp and that's how we know that everything from here to the end of that line is actually in the key of A minor. So it's moved to another key, it's modulated. So if we want to get our chords straight for A minor, well, then we've got to start thinking, "Well, what are the chords for A minor?" So you see, this exercise that we've done here in G major, well, can we do that again for A minor?
21:28
And then, we can see what some of these chords are. Just bear with me while I do this little bit of magic and get rid of all the chords for G major. Boom, how about that? Amazing right. Let's now start our exercise again in the key of A minor. So we'll get a stave up and then, we'll have a treble clef and we'll have a scale of A minor, okay? So A B C D E F G-sharp remember, A. Why G-sharp? Because in a harmonic minor scale, we raise the seventh note of the scale.
22:19
A minor's got nothing in the key signature. The seventh note is G, raise it by a semitone, so it's G-sharp. Why the harmonic minor? Because we're looking at harmony. So harmony, harmonic, minor. Do the triads again. So A, C, E, B D F C E G-sharp remember? Because we've got G-sharp on that seventh note, it's G-sharp everywhere else, D F A E G-sharp B F A C G-sharp B D. And then, of course, we're back to chord I again. Label it I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, and of course, this is not VIII,
23:08
we're back to chord I again, aren't we? Now, you could say that this one is A minor, B diminished, C augmented, D minor, E major, F major, G-sharp diminished. That's a perfectly reasonable way of talking about it as well. The advantage of the Roman numerals is they show you which chords are being used inside a particular key. Now then, now we know we're going to A minor, can we work out what's going on here? We've got a D, a, B, an F-natural, and a G-sharp,
23:47
so in fact, we've got four different notes. Could it be that we've got one of these seventh chords again? There are only three notes in a triad, in a chord, but if we've got four, it might be a seventh, let's see if we can work out these notes. Well, it's looking a bit like chord VII, isn't it? Because we've got G-sharp, B, D, and then, we've got F as well. So it's looking like a VII7, which is also known as a diminished seventh chord. If you've got minor thirds between each intervals,
24:22
a minor third from G-sharp to B, a minor third from B to D, a minor third from D to F, it's a diminished seventh. So we're in the key of A minor, and this is a diminished seventh. Now, you could call it a VII7 chord, that's absolutely fine. It's just that it is also a diminished seventh, so just something to bear in mind in the description of it. In terms of which inversion, well, we've got D in the bass. So look, that's that note there, isn't it? So a second inversion,
24:56
so it's a diminished seventh in second inversion. So it's a "c", isn't it? When we look at the next chord, we've got C, A, E, A. So A comes twice, A, C, E, aha, that's looking like a chord I, isn't it? So this is chord I in A minor, C is in the bass, so that's the middle note. So it's in first inversion, so it's chord Ib, so that's what's going on there. When you come to the next chord, you might notice that this is a bit of a familiar friend because it's the same notes as this,
25:36
even though they've all been sort of differently reorganised. You've got this G-sharp, B, D with the F again. So it's this chord VII, isn't it? With the seventh on it. So, it's another one of these diminished seventh chords and this time, what's the inversion? Well, we've got a B, haven't we? So it's the third of the chord this time. So this one is in first inversion, it's a diminished seventh "b", all right? And then, the next chord, well, this is an interesting one
26:18
because we've only got three notes this time. We've got a C, we've got an E, and we've got a C. So in fact, we've only got two different notes, a C and an E. So, it could be something to do with chord III because that's got a C and an E in it. Or it could be something to do with chord I because that's got a C and an E. How do we know? A bit difficult to tell sometimes, but really, it's sore to make sense, it's the last note of this phrase that maybe we're coming back to chord I,
26:48
rather than going to chord III. So let's call it chord I and then say, "Well, which note's in the bass?" The root, the third, or the fifth? The third's in the bass, so it's in first inversion. It's Ib. Okay, now, just to sort of slightly speed up the process, I'll tell you that the next chord is chord II. It's the B, D, F chord and it's in first inversion. So this is a IIb. Then the next chord, E, G-sharp B, looking like a chord V, isn't it? And it's in root position because E's in the bass.
27:33
That chord then repeats, so that's nice because it's V again. And then, at the end of this, we come to an A, C, E chord, so it's chord I. So you see what's going on in that second phrase? So, now looking at this second phrase, we've got this diminished seventh, to Ib, diminished seventh, Ib, and after the rest, we've got IIb and then V, V, I. And so, it goes on, we could do the rest of the piece, but I think you've got the idea, haven't you? As to how this works?
28:14
So this is how to look at a piece of music and do some chord analysis to really sort of think what was the composer thinking, what was the composer doing? What's happening with these keys? Getting the idea of starting in G major and then modulating to A minor, and then working out where he goes from there. There's a means of understanding the piece, thinking, "Oh, those diminished seventh chords, "if I'm playing this piece, I might want to paint those
28:40
"because they're a bit colourful, aren't they?" So we might want to make something of these diminished sevenths. We might want to make something of chords like this as well, where we had that little bit of colour into D major. So apart from maybe emphasising the melody at the top, you're going to draw out these chords. If you're writing music, well, here's a few ideas from Schumann as to how you use the basic chords, how you vary the inversions, how you add seventh,
29:07
how you add a bit of colour using things like diminished seventh chords. And we've seen all of that in the opening bars of this one movement of Schumann's "Scenes From Childhood". So I hope that's helpful in terms of doing this chord analysis. Now, if you've enjoyed this video, you might want to go to our website, www.mmcourses.co.uk. There, you can find dots of details of our courses, simply by clicking on Courses. And there, you'll find courses in Harmony.
29:48
Lots more on Harmonic Analysis, but other things as well, Aural Orchestration lots of things that are going to empower you as a musician. So have a look at the courses, then when you go back to the homepage, click on Maestros and you'll find out all about our international community of musicians. Three levels, nothing to do with ability, but just kind of levels of access and engagement. Level one is a kind of fun membership, but that enables you just to engage with us a bit more fully
30:21
and comes with fun things like emojis and so on. Level two comes with more perks, including a monthly live stream where you can join me for an hour every month and I'll give you an hour of solid teaching on this kind of thing in much more detail. And you can ask questions in a live chat, interact with the other people in the group, and that's a wonderful place to be. If you want to go yet a step further, you can take out a level three membership,
30:50
which gives you all the perks of level one and level two, but this time, you can submit your own work. So if you want to submit some chord analysis, I'll give you one-to-one feedback on it. If you want to submit a composition or an arrangement, or a recording of yourself playing, you can do that and I'll give you individual feedback, we'll share it in the group, the live chat runs. So lots of questions and comments will come in, lots of supportive stuff from other people
31:18
and we all learn from each other, and you'll just discover that you're part of a group of musicians from all over the world, all on the same kind of journey or a different version of the same kind of journey. So it's a lovely group to get to know other musicians and for us to learn from each other. So have a look on Maestros and see what's there for you. www.mmcourses.co.uk.
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