Basic Chromatic Harmony
The Basic Chromatic Harmony course consists of 20 episodes. The first 13 are shown in the key of C major. They take you through examples of using the V7 of each diatonic chord. You see examples of V7 of I, V7 of ii, V7 of iii etc.
You then move onto the use of the fully diminished chord, you are shown how these can replace the V7 chord or be used in addition to the V7 chord when moving to each of the diatonic chords.
In episode 12 you are introduced to the use of the augmented chord and how this can be used to move to the diatonic chords in C.
Episode 13 is a summary of the first 12 episodes.
In episodes 14 to 16 you start looking at C minor and how to use v7 chords and V7 chords to tonicise chords in C harmonic minor.
In episode 17 you look at dominant chord chains around the circle of fifths.
In episode 18 you look at Italian, German and French augmented sixth chords in C major resolving to the V chord.
In episode 19 you look at how the augmented sixth chords can be used in minor to resolve to the I chord with 5 in the bass.
In episode 20 you look at the Neapolitan sixth chord combining major and minor.
In all episodes you are only given the chord movement, it up to the user to make them musical by improvising over them, Robert is very good at this but it is up to you to come up with your own ideas how to do this by syncopation, arpeggiation and rhythmic ideas to make them musical.
All the music notation is only given in C major and minor, if you want to have it in other keys you would have to do this yourself.
There are enough exercises to keep you busy for a very long time in this one key, if you transpose them to all 12 keys then there is a lot of work.
Great for those of us that know music but don't read music.
I've been doing Roberts Chromatic Harmony Course religiously for that last year today I am a different musician. 100X better composer, i"m starting to wander around the musical keys and sometimes I surprise myself and burst out laughing at how cool the thing I just did was...Its like I'm channelling music all of a sudden, it’s spiritual. I've never had this with music before, despite years of trying and following other courses. This one was the key for me. It feels like magic. Its all thanks to Robert. Hands down best music teacher ever.
What he did with my ears/brain regarding chromatic harmony is a miracle of sorts. So many concepts I never got nor could even identify despite years of trying, searching, wondering, asking people and just banging my head off a wall just came together because of this course. It is logically structured, well thought out, full of examples, well paced and without a pick of fat. Robert tells us students what he/we need to do to get this stuff (play in all keys, write things out etc) without labouring his points. The examples are inspiring and absolutely delightful to play and transpose and use bits of in my own compositions.
He just did a brilliant job on it and there is no one else teaching chromatic harmony on youtube . Its not aimed at popular music but I’ve found its insights to be the key to the more avant guard (for want of a better word) popular music artists that I'm into like David Bowie, The Beatles, Beach Boys, etc. and its helped me immensely to write my own pieces with those sort of sophisticated moves and to see behind the curtain on what those masters were thinking...Anyway this course is brilliant , I’ve never in my life been so changed by a course of study. If you are willing to put the work in it will make you a much better composer and see/hear all sorts of possibilities you would never get near without it. I am proof. A genius teacher, a peerless teacher. Utterly brilliant! Buy this course, roll up your sleeves, crack your knuckles get the head down daily for months and watch what happens! 10/10
I feel like I found a gold mine when I found the Basic Chromatic Harmony class. I understood secondary dominants, but I had no idea how many more techniques could introduce some chromatic interest into a chord progression. The chord progression examples can be used, modified, orchestrated, or elaborated on. I thoroughly enjoyed this class.