Music is made up of three elements: rhythm, melody and harmony.  Probably only one person out of a thousand does not have a sense of rhythm.  One person out of a hundred does not have a sense of melody, but only one person in a thousand is born with "perfect pitch" sense of harmony.  However, all three of these elements must be developed.  Play the notes in Example A.  Do you recognize the melody?  The reason it is difficult to recognize is because the important elements; rhythm and harmony are missing.

Now play the melody with rhythm and harmony in Example B.  Sounds like a commonplace melody without the harmony, yet this composition has charmed music lovers for well over a century and a half, as it was published in 1801, composed by Beethoven as Sonata Opus 27, No. 2.  What a great musical picture Beethoven made out of an otherwise uninteresting melody.

 
What is harmony?  It is sometimes defined as the clothes worn by the melody.  The same melody could wear many different clothes.  Music is a language of emotions.  It probably began with early man expressing crude emotions by the use of rhythms; drums, and dances.  Later shouts were added.  Loud, high sounds expressed excitement while low sounds expressed grief.  Thus melody was born.  Later came polyphonic music ... two or more melodies at the same time, followed by the  homophonic form ... single line melody with a harmonic accompaniment.  With the beginning of the later form, harmony was used to define the melodic tones.

A single letter of the alphabet has little meaning.  Words must be formed.  For example: if the letter A is used with C and E it forms the word ACE.  Thus triads and chords can also be thought of as words ... musical words that form our musical vocabulary.  When a person's vocabulary is limited, understanding is limited.  At the turn of the century even the unabridged dictionaries had less than 100,000 words.  Now the latest editions contain over half a million.  Imagine trying to explain the intricate workings of computers and being confined to words that were in the dictionary before 1900.  This probably explains why some people do not like modern music, they are not familiar with the new vocabulary.

When should the study of harmony begin?  When does the study of rhythm and melody start?  Why does a student have to wait until at the conservatory level before harmony is considered?  Eliminating harmony is missing one-third of musical education and two-thirds enjoyment.  When a composer harmonizes a tonic note with the subdominant, the question should be 'WHY?'  Why does the C triad sound restful in the key of C; active in the key of F and plaintive in the key of G?  Music is much more exciting and Interesting with the knowledge of chords and harmony.

Trying to learn chords by endless charts and non-theory combination gimmicks is tiresome and impractical.  Chord application is learned quickly by practicing the common chords in a given key and then applying same to a simple standard song or an uncomplicated melodic line.  This makes the study of chords/harmony effective because results are realized quickly.  The ability of a student increases dramatically as chord/harmony knowledge increases.  This can be compared to an almost blind person struggling to find their way with many mistakes while a person with 20/20 vision has a clear path and can see in advance to avoid accidents/mistakes.  The rewards from chord/harmony knowledge are enormous; yet it -r requires patience, discipline and a knowledgeable, experienced teacher to guide you.