A writer uses words and ideas to convey meaning and deliver impact to their reader. By carefully considering word order, grammar, and punctuation, the writer sculpts thoughts into coherent and interesting phrases and sentences that ultimately contribute to paragraphs, chapters, and complete books. Similarly, composers use musical phrases to convey meaning, direction, and emotion. By moving through harmonies in a specific order, a composer can create musical thoughts that, like sentences, contain beginnings, endings, and a clear narrative structure.
The phrase model demonstrates how harmonies move through different configurations of the same path. In general, a phrase begins and ends on tonic. The dominant sets up the resolution back to tonic and thus the simplest version of the phrase model is I–V–I. However, to introduce additional color and variety, the pre-dominant (ii or IV) often precedes the dominant. This then is the core phrase model: Tonic, Pre-dominant, Dominant, Tonic, or T–PD–D–T for short.
It is uncommon for each section of the phrase model to be the same length. When they are, the overall sound quality of the phrase is more simplistic, basic, and neutral. To add variety, whether calming stillness or dramatic tension, it is effective to spend more time on one part of the model. For example, to provide stability and familiarity, linger on the tonic for longer. This establishes the key and gives a firm foundation from which to move. To inject tension and anticipation, linger on the dominant. This heightens the listener’s desire for the eventual return to the tonic.
Lingering on the tonic at the beginning of the phrase (i.e., repeating a tonic chord a few times, perhaps even in different inversions) is certainly one way of establishing the key. Another method, and one that is frequently employed by composers, is called tonic expansion. In its simplest form, this is when the tonic moves away to V or IV then immediately back to I.
At first glance, seeing I–V–I may appear to be a complete phrase but this of course depends on context. If I–V–I is used at the beginning of a phrase and there is no rest or other musical cues to signal the end of the phrase, then it is tonic expansion. In fact, tonic expansion is used so commonly that it can be considered a standard practice for most phrases. Additionally, a phrase’s overall length may be mostly tonic expansion with a relatively quick cadential progression at the end.
This chart shows the path for various chord progressions. Though some composers start on a chord other than tonic, for our purposes here we will always start on tonic. From there, select any viable chord connected by an arrow and indicated by a dotted outline. Each selected chord will appear in order in the music staff below. Each chord can be inverted to demonstrate a different musical aesthetic and the phrase can be played to give an aural impression of the harmonic progression.
A few things worth noting:
Obviously, the rhythmic, melodic, and voice-leading characteristics of these chorales are basic. The purpose of the chart is not to generate complete, musically satisfactory chorales. It is designed to show simple harmonic progressions that follow the phrase model and upon which an original chorale can be based. True musical quality comes from creative human decisions about all the musical parameters, not just a generic harmonic progression.
Select a starting chord (I) on the chart or choose a Model Preset to begin.