From the course: Songwriting Techniques with Chords

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Harmonize a melody

Harmonize a melody - Sibelius Tutorial

From the course: Songwriting Techniques with Chords

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Harmonize a melody

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- When we start to look for chords to use in a song, the first, and most important piece of information to consider is the melody. The melody, and the lyric set to it, is the entry point to a song. It's the first thing a listener pays attention to. The role of harmony is to support and inform the melody and lyric. That's not to say that melody is the first thing you should write when writing a song. There is no one way to write a song. Some people find a chord progression they like and craft a melody on top of it. Some people write lyrics first and then set a melody to them. That said, in this course we are going to assume you're happy with the melody you've written, and you want to figure out the different kinds of chords you can use beneath it. You can always let the chords you come up with influence you melody, but my focus here is to open up your harmonic capabililties. Therefore, we are going to treat the melody of the song as a constant. I've created a selection of short song…

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