Jan 20, 2013
A non-chord tone (sometimes referred to as a non-harmonic tone )is a note which is not part of the accompanying harmony. It may be diatonic or chromatic and usually serves either to embellish or to "smooth out" melodic motion between or around chord tones. Melodic lines rarely remain exclusively within the confines of the given harmony. Without these additional non-chord tones, musical lines would be able to only outline the triad (like a bugle call) or proceed in a homophonic texture.
click link for examples of non-chord tones