Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People Chromatic Harmony tobyrush.com Altered Chordsmusic theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush up to this point, all the chords we’ve been talking about have been built using only the notes in the current key. atic) essentially, this means no accidentals, with the onic exception of the raised sixth at and seventh scale degrees di in minor, which we consider to be now that we’ve covered all theory 27 part of the key. the possible diatonic chords in tertial harmony, it’s time to open lteredthe door (chrom to notes outside the key... 8 a 15 atonic triads di 88 atonic sevenths these add a di “altered chords” extended harmonies certain richness to the harmony by using one or more notes that are not in the key signature 50next miles we’ll be covering and thus require accidentals. several categories of altered chords, each of which have their own unique rules for use. Secondary NEAPOLITAN Subdominants however, there are BORROWED d V a few things that CHORDS $ they all have in SECONDARY common! 26 DOMINANTS AUGMENTED SIXTHS first, every altered chord has to have at least one accidental... second, altered chords can be easily used in place of their if it doesn’t have any accidentals, diatonic counterparts. in other words, you can add some pizzazz then by definition it’s a to a composition by replacing a diatonic chord with an diatonic chord! altered chord that has the same root. V ii 6 7 VI /V I IV IV V vi altered diatonic in general, avoid cross relations. a cross relation occurs when a note appears with two different accidentals in two consecutive chords, in two different voices. 2 with few exceptions, lastly, when you use these chords altered chords can use in part-writing, you should, 3 the same basic root 1 whenever possible, resolve the movements that we’ve altered tones in the direction been using. of their alteration. 5 like the diatonic sevenths, so if a note has a flat, try to however, the common root resolve it down by step or by leap. should only 6 increase tension... ii°5 V don’t move from an altered chord and we generally avoid doubling altered notes, to its diatonic counterpart. since doing so would tend to cause parallel octaves. licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - visit tobyrush.com for more music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush Borrowed Chords how does a composer decide which altered notes to use? in a major key, altered chords use notes outside one possibility is using notes and chords the scale as a means of adding a from the parallel minor. different “color” to the chord. for example, the following chords are diatonic chords in c minor: “borrowed”? why call them that when major never brings 7 7 them back? c: ii° ii° III iv VI vii° but if we use them in a major key, they require and are hey, minor! accidentals I’ll have them therefore altered chords. we call these borrowed chords because they back by tuesday are from the this time, I borrowed parallel minor. promise! some theorists C: ii° ii°7 III iv VI vii°7 refer to the use of these chords as mode mixture. two of these chords, and, in fact, these six chords the “flat three” and “flat six,” are the six most commonly used have altered tones as roots. we place a full-sized flat symbol borrowed chords in the common before the roman numeral itself practice period. (One of them, the to indicate this altered root. major triad on the lowered mediant, or “flat three,” was not used much by composers before wait... since we the romantic era.) why? double the root, moving both roots all the usual part-writing rules apply to these the same direction 5 chords. for example: can often result in parallel octaves. 8 VI V the borrowed supertonic is a 6 diminished triad, and is therefore it’s more important to ii° always used in first inversion. avoid parallelism than to resolve the notes a certain way, so this use of contrary the borrowed seventh chords 7 motion is better. can be used in any inversion, but the ii° VI V seventh must be approached 7 and resolved properly. vii° the picardy third is a major tonic chord at the end of a minor piece, so many theorists consider it a borrowed it’s usually best to resolve altered chord. really, though, it’s not adding notes in the direction of their III chromatic variety... it’s a last-minute alteration, but doing so in the two modulation! altered root chords won’t work. VI named for the leading-tone fully diminished 24th-century seventh is the king of dominant explorer 7 function. don’t even think of jean-luc picard!* resolving it to anything but tonic! vii° 7 6 g: i V i VI ii° V I *Nope. licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - visit tobyrush.com for more The Neapolitanmusic theory forSix musicians and normal people by toby w. rush in addition to the altered root borrowed chords, there is another altered root chord that fits well since it’s not a borrowed with the borrowed chords, even though it is not chord, this chord can be used actually borrowed from the parallel minor. in both major and minor. that chord is a ***** major triad there are a couple of interesting built on the things about this chord. one is lowered second the fact that it is almost scale degree. exclusively used in first inversion. seriously! although this chord is extremely common in the common practice period, there are very few examples of it used in root position. second inversion is even rarer. the second interesting thing about 6 the chord is its name: you might expect it to be called a in keeping C: N “flat two,” with the other altered root chords. The Neapolitan six chord, since it is but, in fact, this is the first of a few chords built on a form of the supertonic, that have special names. This particular one has some characteristics of a is called the neapolitan chord. subdominant function chord in that it often resolves toward a “neapolitan” means “from naples,” dominant function. in fact, it is very referring to the city of naples, common to see the neapolitan chord italy. the chord isn’t actually resolve to a dominant seventh in from naples, though; it was third inversion, or to a cadential just associated with the operas six-four chord. written by neapolitan composers like alessandro scarlatti. scar Naples latti funny thing is, this chord was used pretty commonly before scarlatti’s time, in compositions far from the courts of italy. 6 4 6 6 C: N V2 N I4 (even though the neapolitan chord it’s also worth noting that although nearly has a lot in common with other every theorist and theory textbook calls the subdominant function chords, it is chord a “neapolitan sixth chord,” it is more most often referred to as part of properly called a “neapolitan six chord.” that’s a larger group of chords called because in the rare situations where it is used predominants, and the label of in root position, it is simply called the neapolitan “subdominant function” is generally chord, and when it is found in second inversion, limited to the subdominant and it’s called the neapolitan six-four. supertonic chords and their variants.) since we don’t pronounce I6 as “one sixth,” we shouldn’t say “Neapolitan sixth” for N6! licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - visit tobyrush.com for more Secondarymusic Dominants theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush there is a duality at the heart of common that duality, of course, is the relationship practice period harmonic progression. of dominant function and tonic. like the ancient conflict of jedi and dominant harmony typifies tension sith, it consists of forces that, in the common practice period, and at one level, work against each the tonic represents release. other... but at another, higher V its simplest form, the authentic level, work together, creating cadence, has been ubiquitous energy that drives all else. in western music for centuries. the progression of dominant but that’s crazy talk, though, moving to tonic is so strong, it isn’t it? I mean, how could we would be nice to be able to use control that magic and make it it to provide motion to chords I obey our compositional whim? other than tonic. the answer, of course, is with secondary dominants. let’s say we wanted to what if we wanted to use approach this vi chord. we could use one of the usual that dominant-tonic magic? diatonic chords, the tonic, the ? subdominant, the mediant... but ? what if we’re looking for a bit more tension and release? vi vi if we pretend for a moment that the chord we’re resolving to is a tonic chord, what would the corresponding dominant chord be? altered, yes, but we’re not afraid of those anymore: a: V i V a C: V vi a vi while we might have once called this a now, we’re not just limited to the v chord: short modulation, it is really more like there are five chords with a dominant function! borrowing another key’s dominant chord. if we think of the V chord in the key as the primary dominant, V chords of 7 7 7 related keys are secondary dominants.