Lesson 3 - Harmonic Density
A chord can have many notes, but maybe only a few different pitch classes represented in those notes. The total number of different pitch classes represented in a chord is the chord's harmonic density. The more different pitch classes represented, the more dense the chord.When analyzing chords, we like to reduce them to one representative of each pitch class. This allows us to understand the chord and compare it to other chords in the music. Besides, this is how we hear a chord no matter how many total notes are in it.
©2004 Keith Prater