Harmonizing Medieval Music

[Ron Ofir]

Hi all, I've got this nice piece of medieval instrumental dance song that I'd like to find chords for (somewhat like the chords there are for Scarborough Fair). However, I'm really confused and I don't know what to do. I can clearly see some cadences (for example, bar 3 is Dm and 4 is C), but that's about it. I know I should probably somehow use modes, but I really don't know how. The song can be found here.

Any help would be appreciated!!

[stevel]

Originally Posted by Ron Ofir

Hi all, I've got this nice piece of medieval instrumental dance song that I'd like to find chords for (somewhat like the chords there are for Scarborough Fair). However, I'm really confused and I don't know what to do. I can clearly see some cadences (for example, bar 3 is Dm and 4 is C), but that's about it. I know I should probably somehow use modes, but I really don't know how. The song can be found here.

Any help would be appreciated!!

Ron,

This is probably not the best tune for this. What I mean is, there's no real good patterns or obvious harmonies implied. You could harmonize this a thousand different ways. Your first 4 chords could be G-C-G-C. But if you put in G-am-G-C, you get a more modal flair already. In fact you could make m. 3 an em as well. I mean the possibilities are endless - this could be as simple as G and C, or G and C and F throughout. Obviously, the original was just a drone, so that worked fine!

Also, it's not very modal - it's all basically C Ionian. You could probably "force" some other modal-sounding bits to go with it. But really, your chord choices are so plentiful you could do anything with it.

So my point is, the reason you might be having a hard time with it is not because it's hard to harmonize, but because it's too easy to harmonize too many different ways, and there's nothing "tell-tale" about it. You have to let your ear be your guide on something like this because there's no "right" (i.e. obvious) way to do it.

Steve

[Boneman]

I agree with Steve on this one. I think it is down to what you perceive to be the sound you think would be best for you. You could do things with the melody itself (double values, invert etc) why not try harmonising it in different ways as an experiment?