Workshop 87 mini-test

1. What is harmonic rhythm?

2. Why can changing duration alter the perceived function of a chord?

3. What is the difference between root rhythm, functional rhythm, color rhythm, and attack rhythm?

4. Why does harmonic acceleration usually increase tension?

5. Why can harmonic deceleration feel like resolution even if the chord is not tonic?

6. What is the difference between harmonic anticipation and delay?

7. How can harmony arrive in layers?

8. Why is a fast progression often better voiced sparsely?

9. What is harmonic ritardando?

10. What is the deepest lesson of Workshop 87?

Answers

1. Harmonic rhythm is the rate and placement of harmonic change through time—not merely which chords occur, but how long they last and where their changes fall relative to meter and phrase.
2. Longer duration gives a sonority more perceptual weight and allows it to become a destination or region; brief duration often makes the same sonority feel like a connector, approach, or ornament.
3. Root rhythm tracks bass/root changes; functional rhythm tracks changes in large harmonic role; color rhythm tracks extensions/alterations within a function; attack rhythm tracks when voicings are physically struck. They may operate independently.
4. More harmonic events per unit time create more information and directional activity, reducing stability and usually increasing momentum toward a destination.
5. The listener also experiences release through reduced event rate; after rapid harmonic activity, a long stable sonority can feel like arrival simply because change has stopped.
6. Anticipation lets the next harmony or part of it arrive before its expected metric point; delay keeps the previous harmony or unresolved element beyond the expected arrival.
7. Bass, melody, guide tones, and color tones can change at different moments—for example bass reaches tonic first, guide tones resolve on the downbeat, and extensions arrive later.
8. Rapid changes already supply high information density; thick voicings at every event can blur voice leading, register, and groove. Sparse shells allow the harmonic motion to remain intelligible.
9. A progressive slowing of the rate of harmonic change—longer and longer chord durations—while the actual tempo may remain completely constant.
10. Harmony gains much of its emotional meaning from timing: the same chord can function as an ornament, a destination, a suspense field, or a structural region depending on when it arrives and how long it is allowed to exist.

The central lesson of Workshop 87 is:

Do not only compose the chords. Compose the amount of time the listener is allowed to believe in each chord before the musical world changes again.