Non-Chord Tones
Play only the notes that are in the chord and your melody is correct and lifeless: a written-out arpeggio. Everything that gives a line movement and humanity sits in the notes that do not belong. Three questions tell you which kind you are looking at.
- 3 questions
- 7 types
- nothing to memorise
Where you run into this
- Classical
- Jazz
- Pop
- Choral music
In short
Before learning any names, know the three questions. How do you get in: by step, by leap, or not at all because the note was already sounding? How do you get out: by step or by leap, in the same direction or the opposite one? And where does it fall: on a strong beat or a weak one? Almost the entire classification is a filling-in exercise on that grid, which means you can derive every type instead of memorising it.
Once you hear the difference, you cannot unhear it. A melody stripped to chord tones sounds like an exercise; the same melody with its passing notes and suspensions restored sounds like music. The notes that do not belong are doing the emotional work.
How it works
A passing tone steps in and steps out in the same direction, filling the gap between two chord tones, and it is by far the most common. A neighbour tone steps away and comes straight back. A suspension holds a note from the previous chord into the next one, where it no longer fits, and then resolves down by step, which is where most of the feeling in a cadence lives. An appoggiatura leaps in and resolves by step, and it is the sharpest of the lot.
Where you run into this
- A vocal line that lands slightly wrong on the downbeat and resolves half a beat later
- A piano figure filling the space between two chord tones
- A suspension in a hymn, which is the oldest way to make a chord ache
Our own examples
The same four-bar melody three times: chord tones only, with passing and neighbour notes added, and with suspensions on every strong beat. Nothing but the decoration changes.
Keep going
Everything in melody and form
- Writing a Melody
- Motifs and Phrasing
- Melody and Harmony
- Non-Chord Tones