I possess a whole book dedicated to harmonising. It coverrs perhaps if not all chords and how they can be harmonized with a melody. However, all the examples given so far, is only concerned with melodies that are extremely simple, i.e mostly it is a note which repeats over half or an entire bar. This is however, some examples of harmonizing notes which leap, but none that covers melodies which move in stepwise motion, which I think is necessary, as this would advance nicely from the more simplistic examples.
The motivating factor in me asking this question is that I have created various melodies that I can seem to harmonize well (it follows the guidelines, and sounds quite decent). I am trying to do one of these 'chord at the beginning of every bar' type progression, since it's both popular and simple, which is a good starting point for me.
However, the main motive (as in the musical motive) consists of rapid stepwise motion between notes E and F for the first half of the 2nd and 4th bars, and playing the chord later on in the bar just doesn't seem right at all.
So of course, every chord sounds like someone's just been murdered. So, am thinking there must be various techniques/workarounds/trade offs that can be made, which have gained popularity via the years of experience from various musicians/cultures/genres.
Thank you for reading my post, if anyone could give me any sort of starting point, it would be very much appreciated :)