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Step 7

Musical

Example

 Chord Positions and Melody

We are still playing all the chords in root position. Before we go any further, let's reposition them to include chord inversions:

As we heard in our previous example, this creates a smoother flow from one chord to another.

Let's place a melody on top of these chords:

Like our first example in steps 3 and 4, the melody grows by climbing higher in each bar. For short examples, this method quickly demonstrates progression in the melody.

Bar 1, beat 4 has an interesting sound. The melody plays a note that we don't find in the harmony below it. On that beat, the chord is an f minor, but the melody plays a D:

This actually turns our chord into an f minor 6th chord (fm6). This provides a good example of how a melody can add additional harmonic qualities to an ordinary chord.