What is this tool?

Part writing means setting chords for four voices — soprano, alto, tenor and bass — under the rules of classical harmony: range, spacing, doubling and voice leading. In a harmony exercise you normally have to hunt for your own mistakes. This tool checks the four voices as you enter them and reports what is wrong and why, across nineteen kinds of finding including parallel fifths and octaves, voice crossing, excessive spacing, and unresolved sevenths and leading tones. Load one of the worked examples to hear what each rule actually sounds like when it is broken.

When it helps

• Proofread a harmony exercise

  Check for parallels and crossings before you hand the work in. It is faster than reading every pair of voices yourself, and it misses nothing.

• Hear why a rule exists

  Load the parallel fifths example and play it: the two voices melt into one. That is easier to remember than the rule itself.

• Practise realising a figured bass

  Choosing a scale degree and an inversion fixes the bass. Your job is then to place the upper three voices without triggering a single finding.

How to use

1. 1 Choose the key and whether it is major or minor — the note menus follow the key automatically
2. 2 For each chord, pick the scale degree, triad or seventh, and the inversion
3. 3 Set each voice from its dropdown, or press "Voice it for me" for a standard layout
4. 4 Read the findings and watch which chord is highlighted
5. 5 Press play to hear it, then compare a version with an error against the corrected one

Related Tools

Lessons that use this tool

The sections of the systematic curriculum where this actually comes up.

• Four-Part Writing Four-Part Writing - Ranges, Spacing, and Doubling
• Four-Part Writing Forbidden Parallels - Fifths and Octaves
• Four-Part Writing A Procedure for Connecting Chords
• Four-Part Writing Realizing a Figured Bass