Proctor and the Art of Harmonization

Improvisation is a subject that has grown near and dear to my heart; I've been collecting books on the subject for a couple of years and trying to synthesize what I've read into a single conception of the subject. It is a many-faceted subject that alternates between simple and complex, rigid and free, ancient and modern, and there are different schools of thought on the right way to do it and how to teach it.

I attended the Eastman-Rochester Organ Initiative a couple of years ago which was devoted to the subject of Improvisation and some Pedagogical approaches. It was fascinating trip that changed everything I thought I knew about improvising. Far from the doodling I had always avoided growing up, it was actually a disciplined art with a long history--a history as old as music, in fact. Improvisation is the bridge between composition and repertoire; improvisation is composition and repertoire, as we will see. Improvisation is the ultimate synthesis of all the musical knowledge and wisdom that we accumulate, from the distant realms of music on paper and music in performance, music at the desk and music at the keyboard.

I plan to discuss many topics that relate to successful improvising but since there are so many, I had to find a place to start. I've decided to start with the humble practice of Keyboard Harmonization.


Many improvisation books begin with taking a given theme and toying with it, exploring a little bit with what can be done to develop it. Then quickly one is harmonizing that theme, giving it a musical background. If you want to work your way from total freedom, any notes at all would be appropriate. However, if your theme is Mary Had a Little Lamb, you may find that your random wandering accompaniment has nothing in common with the theme, and therefore, lacks coherence and intelligibility.

It's a paradox of the practice that shows us quickly that having too much freedom can in fact be stifling, since the sheer volume of ways to harmonize a theme leaves us unable to choose one intelligently. What you can do to solve this problem is to create your own rules that will rule out many if not most of the possibilities.

For instance: Rule #1: Accompany the theme in the same hand with parallel fourths. (And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go...)

Now we have a rigid rule that allows only one possible solution. Hooray! Maybe we're a little too rigid... We can add to this.

Rule #2: Accompany the theme in fourths with the left hand playing thirds in half notes, moving chromatically.

Now the left hand has the limited freedom to choose which direction to move, though the method of motion is rigidly defined. Now let's give the pedals something to do.

Rule #3: The pedals shall play parallel fifths in whole notes, moving in minor thirds.

And there you have a complete harmonization with some little amount of freedom, based entirely on casually invented rules, which are in turn based around certain intervals (3rds, 4ths, and 5ths). This formula or procedure, or technique can be used with any theme you could ever find.

But that would get boring after a while--probably immediately, in fact. The point is that with a few relatively simple rules, one can find a way to produce a musical background for any piece. One will soon realize that while it produces a sound which is 'not bad', it's certainly not good, nor great. A lesson can be learned here that sticking too rigidly to a rule, even one of your own invention, is not always the best option.

Two Paths

This leads us to what appears to be a fork in the road towards skill in improvisation. On one side, there is the accumulation of these techniques that can be used in different and varied combinations to produce varied harmonizations and accompaniments to themes. One creates many moods through the exploitation of different scales, modes, colorful chords, etc. Jeffrey Brillhart's book Breaking Free is effectively a catalog of these sorts of techniques employed most often by French improvisors. When corralled into a form, effective music can be created using these techniques. Even without a clear form, the movement between different soundscapes can be enthralling, even moving. 

This method of music making often cares less about the careful treatment of dissonance found in the style commonly called Common Practice. Common Practice music refers here to what would be learned in your Harmony and Counterpoint textbooks. There are rules about motion between the voices to preserve independence of line, the careful treatment of dissonance, and the ideal harmonic background chords that we associate with Bach and those who followed him. Common Practice techniques produce great balance between all the musical elements and create a wonderful fundament on which to build. The individual rules can then be stretched and broken to suit your purposes. 

Common Practice style is rather more difficult than coming from the opposite end of complete freedom tempered only by your own rules. One has to come to terms with the problems of proper voice leading and then use counterpoint to inform on the preparation and resolution of dissonance. Using this knowledge, though, one can improvise fugues and passacaglias just like Dupre.

So which is the right path?

If you seek some moderate proficiency, then either path is permissable, though both would be the best. There are shortcuts to take in either path that will make things easier but won't lead to mastery. If mastery is what you're after, you must explore and you must study. And you must practice.

Since the Common Practice realm is the more difficult, I've chosen to study that first. There are several avenues to proceed, some better than others:

• First, you could study your harmony and counterpoint textbooks. This may be difficult because most texts are concerned with learning a typographical type of harmony. One learns to associate symbols on a page with the aural concepts one should be absorbing. A true musician '...must be able to see with his ears, and hear with his eyes,' said a certain someone that may or may not be in the title of this post... If you feel confident that you can translate this paperwork to the keyboard, then have at it.
• On the other hand, you could go with Dupre's treatise on Improvisation and start by harmonizing the scale in four part harmony, using a certain disposition of the notes that he doesn't name. This leaves open some questions of proper voice leading that can only be filled with textbook experience.
• Another fun way would be to study Continuo playing from a figured bass. This is the most direct way to produce harmony at the keyboard. The question of proper voice leading is still very much present, but the text tells you specifically which harmony needs to go over each note. It then leaves room for a real artist to produce an attractive accompaniment out of only a bass line and some numbers.

But since none of these deal with the subject of harmonizing at the keyboard directly, maybe there's a better source...

Harmonization at the Keyboard

by Charles Proctor

I eventually decided that none of the above methods were sufficient for such a rube as myself, so I started looking for this better source. Every book I ran into that seemed to treat the subject of Keyboard Harmony only taught the necessary rudiments to get through a class at college or please the 'Learn to Play the Piano in 5 minutes!' crowd. Then I ran across this old book published in 1961 on Amazon and ordered the most battered copy I could find. The number of letters after Proctor's name were sufficient to fill a bowl of alphabet soup and I only recognized the F.R.C.O. -- Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, the AGO's esteemed elder brother. Apparently the man knew what he was talking about.

The most fascinating thing to me was that the first chapter dealt only with continuing given melodies. 4 bars of a melody were given, and you must supply another 4. First, using the same rhythm, then adding a repetition and another alteration producing 4 phrases, and then further changing of the material. He was leading the student to take a starting point with a melody and shape it freely as he wills it, eventually making up their own tunes on the spot.

What does this have to do with Harmonization at the Keyboard? This sounds more like improvisation.

The second chapter delves into a simplified keyboard Counterpoint. We only reach triads in the third chapter. Why is this?

Trusting that the man knew of what he spoke, I suppose it's because he's trying to teach the students to 'see with their ears, and hear with their eyes.' He holds it as true that a proper musician must from the very start be able to hear what they are going to play before they play it. That is why with these first exercises, he is only dealing with a single musical line. We try to hear what is presented to us on the page; then we hear what we are going to add to that line, and then we play it. We play this spontaneous invention in all keys, by the way.

So from the very start, we are learning to listen in our minds and create mentally, away from paper, and away from the keyboard. I've heard the same advice in counterpoint textbooks, that it is important to work to hear your solution internally before you decide to write it down. In this way, music remains an aural art rather than a manipulation of symbols on paper.

Proctor also describes the piano style of playing chords, that is with three note chords in the right hand and octaves for the bass in the left.

This is much like the opening style of playing recommended in Figured Bass books because if this disposition is maintained, problems of parallel or hidden fifths and octaves seldom if ever occur. Dupre, without expressing so, recommends an organ style of playing in his first volume of Preparatory Exercises in which much the same thing is happening, but with the triad expanded into a two-handed chord.

These harmonization skills will be the foundation of the study of improvisation. It furnishes practical keyboard skills and connections between the mind and the body, connections that were not cultivated in school.

There is more to the subject but I'm going to go practice the first chapter until I have finished the melody exercises.