Finding the Notes That Are Not in the Chord

Harmony gives you a chord, say C major with notes C, E, and G. A melody sitting on top of that chord does not have to stick to those three notes every beat. It can step away to D or F, create a moment of friction, then settle back. That friction is not a mistake. It is what makes a melodic line feel alive instead of just outlining a triad over and over. Without these extra notes, every tune would sound like a bugle call.

To test whether a melody note is a chord tone or an embellishment, name the chord in effect at that moment, then check the note against its three (or four) members. If the note matches, it is a chord tone. If it does not match, it is a nonchord tone, also called an embellishing tone or a dissonance. The next question is always what happens around it: nonchord tones typically approach and leave by step, which is what makes them sound like passing motion rather than wrong notes. Over a held C major chord, a soprano singing C, D, E is outlining exactly this: C and E belong to the chord, D does not, so D is the embellishing tone, caught stepwise between its two neighbors.

This note-by-note test is the foundation for the rest of the unit. Once you can flag a nonchord tone, you start naming which kind it is, passing tone, neighbor tone, suspension, and so on, based on how it is approached and left. Each type has its own rhythmic placement and resolution pattern, but they all start from this same check: does the note match the chord, and if not, how does it move away from the clash.