Hey YouTube! We are mDecks Music and welcome back today as we answer the most fundamental
and crucial question of "what is tonal harmony." So when you're talking about tonal harmony, you
can probably use functional harmony as sort of a synonym for tonal harmony. That is to say the
chords have a purpose or function within the key that you're playing in. But before we talk about
that let's just go over the three basic regions that we have in total harmony. So in the bottom
of the map we have our tonic region which is basically where everything wants to return to, it's
what everything is calibrated to. That's why we've kind of used this home icon down here to indicate
where everything returns, inevitably, ultimately. Right up here we have our sub dominant region,
these chords have some sort of elevation that then want to dip back down to the tonic region, over
here as -- indicated by the mountain -- and then over here we have our dominant region, where all the
dominant region chords reside, indicated by our choppy waters hieroglyph that kind of creates
or indicates, I should say, tension that wants to go also inevitably back to the tonic region. So
when you're looking at these three regions, as you can see indicated by these hieroglyphs I
was just mentioning these symbols the house the mountain and the choppy waters with the boat on
it, they basically all represent this basic idea that all music is tension and release. And some
regions have a bit more tension than others, right. So that dominant region has a bit more then the
sub-dominant region does, alright. And ultimately everything is calibrated to where our one chord
is.If you've ever learned or played a scale before you probably see this when you jump from one scale
to the next, they all sound the same but they're recalibrated to wherever your first note is, and
that's basically what we're talking about when it comes to tonal harmony. So let's do something
that exercises this or applies this idea. So let's plug in a chord progression in our Mapping Total
Harmony Pro as it is now. We're just gonna go I- IV-V back to one. So C, F, G, C. We can see these
chords functionally, that is to say what purpose they serve within the key that we're playing in, or
what purpose they serve within the map we're using. So we have I-IV-V-I. I can see them exclusively
as Roman numerals or as functions if I just click on that button right there. Now I see
C, F, G, C
as I-IV-V-I. Let's go back to the chord names for a second. Alright let's change
keys, alright. We'll go to the key G alright. So now it becomes G, C, D, G. You'll notice our map has
not changed because in tonal harmony that's the whole point, right. The places that we go to and
from never change, just what key we're in, right. And let's look at the chords again functionally.
Still I-IV-V-I, so the name of the chord is really not as important as what role or purpose
it serves when you're thinking of tonal harmony. So another point worth noting is that in Mapping
Tonal Harmony Pro we're showing the major and minor keys simultaneously. So all the chords on
the outsides of the circles that we have on the map represent chords you would find in a major
key and the chords on the inside are ones of the minor key. So you can merely navigate G major and
G minor at the same time. If you want to write in G minor and let's write the same chord progression
we have over there. Lets go to Gm, Cm, D7, Gm. So there I was just using all chords on the
insides of the circles and now I have a minor I-IV-V-I progression in the key of G
minor, or if I want to switch to C minor there we go. So you'll notice on the map the chords
always change when I change keys. So there they are in G, there they are in Eb, there they are
an F# or Gb. But if I want to look at the map functionally, you'll notice they don't
change and that's the whole point of tonal harmony, is that when I go from one key to the next, how I
navigate one region to the next, does not matter it does not change all right. When you start seeing
your chords as functionally as what role do they serve, what purpose do they serve, it makes sort of
demystifying or decoding music a lot easier a lot more accessible alright. When you see that
a lot of songs are just I-V-VI-IV it sort of makes them be a bit easier to approach
right and there are lots of examples of a core progression being used. When starting to look
at your chords functionally is the whole point of tonal harmony and what we're trying to talk
about here. So once again the map never changes with regard to how the chords function. Only
their names, boom-boom this-this or that. So I hope that was helpful like we always say keep your
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