Mapping Tonal Harmony

Looking at harmony functionally, is the holy grail when it comes to songwriting composition and improvisation. The number of functions and cadences is so vast that it might seem impossible to learn them all.

Let me show you a unique way of looking at harmony where, at one glance, you can see all the functions and cadences, and learn how they relate to each other — in no time at all.

This is the tonal harmony map. Looks complicated? It’s not! Mind you, this harmony map contains all possible pieces or songs written, and yet to be written, that are tonal. If a piece of music is tonal it’s in this map.

So how does this work? So, here’s the circle of fifths in C.

It organizes all 12 tones in music from a C perspective. The only notes that are not in C major, or C minor, are Db and Gb Let’s get rid of the Gb, and change the Db to another color, because we’re going to need it later on.

Now we can move the notes, from the C minor scale, to the inside of the circle. Remember, there are three minor scales: natural, harmonic, and melodic. That’s why B and A are also a part of C minor. If we look at the triads built on each degree, we get all possible diatonic functions in the key of C major and C minor.

Now we can view it functionally. So we turn every chord into the roman numeral that represents the degree of that note in the scale of C.

By doing this, we have a set place for every function regardless of the key that we’re in. For example, V7 is always at one o’clock,

and IV is always at eleven o’clock.

Those are all the possible functions in major and minor. And now you know where they belong in the circle.

This is really important because, when you see a chord in the map, its position in the circle will always be the same. The V7 will always be at one o’clock, and the IV at eleven o’clock.

In tonal harmony there are three regions: the Tonic, the Subdominant, and the Dominant. The Tonic is a point of rest with the least amount of tension. So we call it “Home”. The Subdominant is a transitional place with a little bit of tension, and we’ll represent it as a “Mountain”, because coming from the subdominant to the tonic is known as a plagal cadence, which is usually used at the end of church hymns — like coming from a higher ground. The dominant is the region with the most amount of tension, and we’ll represent it with a “Boat on a Rough Sea”.

So now, we can classify each function in the circle as belonging to one of these three regions. So these are the chords in the tonic region.

Here are the ones in the subdominant region.

And here are the dominants.

Now we can take our original circle and split it into three. One circle in each region that shows only the functions that belong to that specific region.

And that’s what mapping tonal harmony is all about.

This is the basic map of tonal harmony. Remember, every function will always be in the same place. The V7 is still at 1 o’clock and — because it is a dominant chord — it will be located in the dominant region. The 4 is still at 11 o’clock in the subdominant region.

You can now change the view to any key that you want. So here’s the map in C. The I is C, the IV (at eleven o’clock in the subdominant region) is F

And the V7 — at one o’clock in the dominant region — is G7.

We can now represent a I — IV V7 — I progression like this.

Now let’s say we wanna play it or write it in the key of Ab. I just view it in the key of Ab, and take the same journey around the map. Ab — Db — Eb7 and Ab.

Watch the following videos if you want to learn more advanced levels of the map — such as secondary dominants and modal interchange chords.

https://youtu.be/Un0-XWBXwPc

https://youtu.be/KJVeedeVifk

You can find more about Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro here:

https://mdecks.com/mapharmony.phtml