Workshop 96 mini-test

1. Why is note-by-note harmonization a poor real-time strategy?

2. Why can tonic pedal be useful rather than primitive?

3. What is the basic functional hierarchy for first-pass major-key accompaniment?

4. Why does a melody note outside the chord triad not necessarily require a chord change?

5. How can bass help choose between several plausible chords?

6. What should you do when you are uncertain about major/minor quality?

7. Why are shells especially useful in real-time accompaniment?

8. What is the best response to a wrong chord during live accompaniment?

9. Why should first and later choruses often be harmonized differently?

10. What is the deepest lesson of Workshop 96?

Answers

1. Because melodies usually contain many more notes than harmonic events. Processing each note as a separate chord decision keeps you reacting to the past instead of hearing the phrase and anticipating its destination.
2. A tonic pedal establishes tonal context, supports many melody notes as chord tones/extensions/non-chord tones, reduces decision load, and gives you time to hear the phrase before committing to more specific harmony.
3. Start with I, IV, V, then add vi and ii. Think broadly in terms of tonic, predominant, dominant, and return before adding secondary or chromatic harmony.
4. Notes such as 2, 6, 7, suspensions, neighbors, and passing tones can function as extensions or melodic decorations over an unchanged harmony. Advanced harmonic hearing increases the number of notes you can tolerate without changing roots.
5. Choose the chord that supports a convincing bass contour—especially stepwise or common-tone motion—and leads naturally toward the phrase destination. Bass can distinguish chords that share the same melody note.
6. Use an open fifth, sus/open voicing, or bass-only texture and delay the defining 3rd until the melody/context supplies enough evidence.
7. Bass + 3rd/7th supplies most of the harmonic identity while leaving room for the melody to provide the 5th or extensions. Shells are quick, transparent, and demand less processing attention.
8. Keep time and convert the event into the nearest coherent continuation through voice leading. Lower or raise one voice, reinterpret the bass as an inversion, use a deceptive resolution, or simplify. Stopping is usually more disruptive than an imperfect harmony.
9. The first pass is still teaching you the melody/form, so simple harmony maximizes listening capacity. Repetition gives you prediction and memory, allowing later passes to add inversions, fills, inner lines, secondary dominants, and reharmonization safely.
10. Real-time harmonization is fundamentally the skill of hearing enough structure ahead of the present moment that you can play something simple and coherent now while continuing to listen for what the melody is becoming.

The central lesson of Workshop 96 is:

Do not wait until you know every chord before you accompany the music. Hear the destination, give the melody a trustworthy bass and function, play only as much harmony as you truly know—and let the arrangement become richer as your certainty grows.