How do chords and keys create harmony and a sense of tonality?
Harmony and tonality, including chords and their qualities, primary and secondary triads, cadences, consonance and dissonance, major, minor, modal and atonal tonality, keys, modulation and the use of pedals and drones.
A focused answer to the harmony and tonality strand of the AQA GCSE Music elements, covering chords, primary triads, cadences, consonance and dissonance, major and minor tonality, modulation and pedals.
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What this dot point is asking
AQA wants you to describe how notes sound together. You should recognise chords and triads, identify the four cadences, hear consonance and dissonance, and describe tonality as major, minor, modal or atonal, including modulation and the use of pedals and drones in unfamiliar extracts. Harmony questions appear in Section A (naming a cadence or working out a chord) and feed into Section B extended answers, where you link the harmony to the style and area of study.
Chords and triads
Triads come in different qualities depending on the intervals inside them. A major triad (a major third then a minor third) sounds bright; a minor triad (a minor third then a major third) sounds darker; a diminished triad (two minor thirds) sounds tense and unstable; and an augmented triad (two major thirds) sounds strange and suspended. Seventh chords add a fourth note a seventh above the root: the dominant seventh (chord V plus a seventh) is especially important because its built in dissonance pulls strongly toward the tonic, driving a perfect cadence. Chords can also be inverted (a note other than the root in the bass), which changes the colour without changing the chord's identity.
Cadences
A cadence is a pair of chords that ends a musical phrase, like punctuation:
- Perfect (V to I): sounds finished, like a full stop.
- Imperfect (any chord to V): sounds unfinished, like a comma.
- Plagal (IV to I): the gentle "Amen" cadence.
- Interrupted (V to vi): a surprise, where the expected tonic is replaced by the minor chord vi.
Cadences are one of the most frequently tested harmony points, because they let the examiner check that you can hear chord function and not just guess. Train your ear to hear whether a phrase sounds finished (perfect or plagal), unfinished (imperfect), or surprising (interrupted).
Tonality
Tonality is the sense of a home key. Music can be:
- Major: generally bright and happy.
- Minor: generally darker or sadder.
- Modal: based on a mode rather than a major or minor key, common in folk and some popular music.
- Atonal: no key centre at all, found in Western classical music since 1910.
Modulation is a change of key within a piece, most often to the dominant (the key a fifth higher) or to the relative minor (or relative major). You hear a modulation as a fresh sense of arrival in a new key, often confirmed by a cadence in that key. Sonata form and many Classical and Romantic works depend on moving away from and back to the home key, so spotting modulation helps you place an extract.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of AQA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AQA 20192 marksSection A, Listening. Name the cadence heard at the end of this phrase, and state the two chords that form it using Roman numerals.Show worked answer →
A 2 mark short answer testing cadence recognition (AO3). One mark for naming the cadence, one for the chords.
Listen to the last two chords of the phrase. A finished, full stop sound is a perfect cadence (chords V to I). An unfinished, hanging sound that lands on chord V is an imperfect cadence (for example I to V). A gentle Amen sound is a plagal cadence (IV to I). A surprise, where you expect I but get the minor chord vi instead, is an interrupted cadence (V to vi).
For full marks, name the cadence and give the Roman numerals, for example "perfect cadence, to ". The most common error is swapping imperfect (ends on V) and interrupted (V to vi).
AQA 20213 marksCalculate the notes of the chords. A piece is in the key of G major. Using Roman numerals, work out the three primary triads (I, IV and V) and name the three notes in each chord.Show worked answer →
A short worked-harmony question. Three marks, one per correctly spelled primary triad.
First write out the G major scale: . The primary triads are built on the first, fourth and fifth degrees.
Chord is built on G: take G, then the note a third above (B), then the note a fifth above (D), giving (G major). Chord is built on C: (C major). Chord is built on D: (D major). Note that the comes from the key signature.
Markers reward correctly spelled triads with the right accidental. A frequent slip is writing an natural in chord V instead of the required by G major.
Related dot points
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Sources & how we know this
- AQA GCSE Music (8271) specification — AQA (2016)