We explain what harmony is, its importance in music and other forms of art. Also, who was the Greek goddess Harmony.
What is harmony?
In general terms, harmony is the good combination of an element with the others that accompany, precede or follow it, in such a way as to build a set pleasant, regular or well arranged. This is a term that comes from the world of music, in which it is applied to the combination of sounds simultaneous and different, that is, to the link and the construction of the chords (three simultaneous sounds).
In the latter case, the harmony has to do with the "vertical" point of view of the music, that is, with the perceptible sounds at a given moment in time. weather, unlike the melody, which is "horizontal", that is, it has to do with the succession of sounds over time. In any case, the concepts of melody, harmony and counterpoint are closely related in the study of music.
However, the concept of harmony is not unique to music, but can be applied to other Arts, as the painting, in which it applies to the way in which colors and the shapes blend nicely with each other. Like so many other things in art, the idea of what is harmonious and what is not has changed over the centuries.
Similarly, other fields of knowledge have borrowed the idea of harmony, extending it to the pleasant combination of elements of any kind. A harmonious arrangement of the furniture in our home is one that makes everything look in its proper place, and a sense of harmony is one that gives us serenity and the subjective feeling that "everything is in its proper place" in our lives.
In fact, the search for existential or personal harmony is one of the most common tasks of self-help and mysticism, which seek to orchestrate in the best way the different aspects of our life. personality.
Harmony or Harmony?
We must not confuse these two words, which sound the same and are written differently (that is, they are homonyms).
We speak of harmony to refer to what has been explained so far, while Harmony was the name of the Greek goddess of harmony and mildness, which the Romans baptized Concord. Daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, she was the wife of Cadmus and the only one capable of differentiating her brothers, the twins Phobos ("fear") and Deimos ("terror").
In English, however, there is no written distinction between Harmony and Harmony (harmony).