See more of what is happening in the music you play
Understanding Harmony for Pianists is a practical course for pianists who want to understand more of the relationships beneath the notes they already play.
You may have arrived here because a score has begun to look like too much separate information, or simply because you are curious about what is happening underneath familiar music. Whichever route brought you here, the central question is the same: can understanding more of how the music works help us develop as musicians? This is where Understanding Harmony can be a natural next step.
Because you are already part of Tommy’s Piano Corner, I have created a special introductory offer for you on Udemy. It is available until 22nd October.
Harmony as a practical way of seeing relationships
As music becomes richer, it can feel as though there is simply more and more information to process: notes, accidentals, unfamiliar shapes and chords that do not seem to belong. Yet most of those details are not random. They form relationships that create tension, expectation, movement and destination.
Once we recognise the relationship, several apparently separate details can become part of one intelligible event. We can begin to ask not only what a chord is, but what it is doing, where it came from and where it seems to be going.
Harmony therefore gives us a practical route through the music: patterns and landmarks that can strengthen understanding, reading, learning, memory and navigation.
Music first then terminology
The course begins with behaviour that can be played and heard. At the keyboard we can see chord shapes, compare scales and notice what feels settled, what creates tension and what suggests a destination.
Only after the behaviour begins to mean something do we add the conventional terminology that helps us describe and recognise it elsewhere. The aim is not to memorise a catalogue of unrelated rules, but to build a practical harmonic framework that can be reconstructed in different keys and contexts.
The framework begins with scales and chord families, then explores the ways chords connect. Later ideas grow from those relationships, so the course can develop into more substantial material without asking you to begin again with an entirely different system.
From transparent examples into classical music
Written music rarely presents harmony as a neat row of blocked chords. This is why the course also uses chord progressions, chord symbols and lead sheets: a transparent working environment in which a relationship can be seen and heard before we look for it inside a fuller texture.
The ideas are then connected with real classical examples. Bach’s Prelude in C major reveals harmonic events beneath its flowing surface, whilst the familiar G sharp in Beethoven’s Für Elise becomes less arbitrary when we understand the direction of the minor harmony. The examples show that relationships learned in an exposed form continue to operate inside finished music.
What you can realistically expect
By the end of the course, you should have a more practical way to understand harmony at the piano. Instead of asking only for a chord name, you will be better equipped to consider its function, direction and relationship to what surrounds it.
That awareness can help us group what we read, make sense of accidentals, notice landmarks whilst learning and reconstruct familiar relationships in new keys. The aim is not to attach a theoretical label to every note, but to see more structure and have a useful set of questions available when the music becomes unfamiliar.
Is the course likely to suit you
The course is centred on pianists who want to understand more of the music they play. It is likely to suit you if you can follow simple notation, understand basic scales and are willing to pause at a piano or keyboard to test the relationships for yourself.
My own background is mainly classical, and the finished course returns the framework to classical repertoire. You do not need advanced theory, improvisation experience or prior experience of lead sheets.
The course contains 24 video lessons across nine sections. Each lesson has an accompanying workbook, and a downloadable three-song lead-sheet collection provides a clear setting in which to try the relationships for yourself.
The subscriber offer
To take advantage of this introductory offer for those who have joined Tommy’s Piano Corner, click the link below. It expires on 22nd October.
If the course sounds relevant, the link below will take you to Udemy with the intended offer applied. You can take a closer look at the full listing and decide whether you would like to enrol.