Embellish and varying the accompaniment

Up to now, we have used notes that appear in the chords to provide our accompaniment to the melody.

To add variety, we can frequently connect our chord tones with neighboring notes that don't belong to the indicated chord.

Generally these notes don't belong will be placed on the weak beats so that our strong beats will continue to outline and define our basic chords.

Non-chord tones can be used to connect.

Look at p. 75.

How do you know which notes fit and which don't?
There is no answer to this question.
Neighbouring tones taken from the scale are good choices.



Sometimes it doesn't have to be a scale tone but a passing chromatic tone.


One guide to using chromatic passing tones:
if they are a semi tone above or below a chord tone and then resolve to that chord tone, usually they sound good.

However it is not a good idea to have too many non-chord tones in the accompaniment cuz that may destroy the sense of the harmony.

You will usually want to play the root of the chord on the downbeat in order to establish the basic harmony.


one of the secrets of creating a good, full accompaniment is to have a distinct bass line.
And also to have enough full chords so that the harmony is filled out.


As we start adding non-chord passing tones as part of the bass line, we will create situations where non-chord bass notes are harmonized against the chord. Isolated, these notes may seem discordant, but in the context of the whole line or phrase, such passing harmonic conflicts will sound fine. Pedal use, phrasing and dynamic level all affect the ear's ability to maek harmonic sense out of passing on-harmonic tones.