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Home , Altered chord, Augmented sixth, Augmented sixth chord, Borrowed chord, Major chord, Neapolitan chord

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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 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...

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15 atonic triads di 88 atonic sevenths these add a di “altered chords” extended 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 however, there are BORROWED d V a few things that CHORDS $ they all have in SECONDARY common! 26 DOMINANTS AUGMENTED SIXTHS first, every 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 . 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 .

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Borrowed Chords how does a decide which altered notes to use? in 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 , or “flat three,” was not used much by 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 is a 6 , and is therefore it’s more important to ii° always used in . 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 is a major tonic chord at the end of 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 . 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 , there are very few examples of it used in . 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 . 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 , or to a cadential just associated with the operas six-four chord. written by neapolitan composers like . 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 ,” 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 , 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. V V vii° vii° vii° dominant function chords that gives us 7 7 7 a huge list of V V vii° vii° vii° possibilities! x x x x x the secondary dominants these chords often resolve to the in major keys, the “x” above can be any chord “under the slash,” but they can diatonic chord other than tonic (obviously) actually be approached and resolved or the leading-tone triad. why? because using the basic root movements! a diminished triad has a hard time acting like a temporary tonic chord. 2 the basic root movements 3 rock! in minor keys, the composers generally 1 only used secondary dominants 5 of iv and of V. yes. yes they do.

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like that moment of incredible tension just before the hero finally kisses the leading lady, the half-step is the go-to interval for creating tension in music of the common practice period. it drives the entire style!

if one half-step can create such strong tension, how about two half-steps sounding simultaneously? Let’s get creative here for a minute to find a cool new way to approach a diatonic chord. in this case, we’ll use them to approach the dominant triad.

...and approach that first, we’ll start with with a half step the doubled root of a below the top note, V chord... V V ...and, finally, add the V ...and a half step above tonic as the third note. the bottom note...

the result is a new chord, one we call the chord, after the interval created by the top and bottom notes.

augmented sixth chords are predominant chords, meaning they are used to approach dominant chords. if we just use they are usually used to approach dominant triads, three notes not dominant sevenths, because of the doubled and double the roots present in dominant triads. tonic, we get the italian however, they also often augmented sixth. approach tonic chords It.6 in second inversion, which also contain a doubled scale degree. if we add the 6 Ger.6 I4 second scale degree instead rarely, augmented sixth chords of doubling the are found transposed down tonic, we get the a , analyzed as french “on flat two,” and used to augmented sixth. approach a tonic chord in Fr.6 root position. Fr.6 I on 2 and if we and, finally, when resolving replace the the german augmented sixth second scale chord to a dominant triad, degree with the you might find yourself lowered third writing parallel fifths... scale degree, but it’s perfectly okay! we get the mozart did it all the time! 5 german augmented sixth. Ger.6 Ger.6 V

licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - visit tobyrush.com for more Altered andmusic Enharmonictheory for musicians and normal people Modulation by toby w. rush Altered common chord modulation is easy: remember diatonic common F: I IV V chord modulation, where we used a C: I V I chord that was diatonic in both the old and new keys?

altered common chord modulation is the same thing, only using the pivot chord as an altered chord in either the old key, the new key, or both. F: I IV V E: VI V I Now, in both diatonic modulation and altered modulation, we have one chord that plays two different roles, one for each key. But the chord type doesn’t change... if it was a in the old key, it’s still a major chord in the new key. ...but...but whatwhat ifif thethe chordchord typetype did change?

this technique is in modulation, we respell a chord so — well, odd — that so the enharmonically chord type itself there are only is different in the old and new keys. two specific ways to do it. ever notice that the german is just like fully chords are a major-minor cool for a lot of reasons, and one of with the seventh respelled them is that they are equidistant chords: enharmonically? inverting a fully diminshed seventh yields another root-position fully dimished seventh chord. beethoven did! 7 C: Ger.6 D : V 7 invert 6 7 a° a°5 respell c° we can take advantage of this and use it meaning that a fully diminished as a pivot chord... where it acts like a leading tone seventh chord german augmented sixth in one key can be a pivot chord into but like a 7 (or a 7 secondary dominant) V V /x three other possible keys: in the other key!

which can be respelled as 7 7 G: I vii° vii° 6 E: vii°5 I which can be respelled as 7 7 G: I vii° vii° 6 7 4 D : vii°3 I D : IV V C: Ger.6 V I which can be note that the pivot chord above is respelled as approached like a dominant seventh, but resolved like an G: I vii°7 vii°7 augmented sixth chord! 4 B : vii°2 I

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after learning about secondary dominants, you might wonder if it’s possible to extend the concept to other chords.

for example, if we can use a dominant function chord from a related key, what about a subdominant function chord from a related key, like IV of V?

well, the answer is yes, and the chords that result are called secondary subdominants. but before we talk about them, you need to understand a few things.

first of all, the very existence of these chords is debatable. what one theorist might call second, the only place a secondary subdominant: we find chords that we can call secondary subdominants is in the music of thex romantic era.x 7 4 6 C: C: ii° V2 V I V V

another might call a short modulation. iv Lastly, since these chords are already pushing the limits of , composers IV would only use secondary subdominants iv from closely related keys. In other words, secondary subdominants 7 4 6 G: ii° V2 I should only be “of IV” and “of V.” C: V6 I V

keeping these things in mind, let’s look at the possibilities: what are all the subdominant function chords we’ve encountered? first, there are next, the diatonic and, lastly, a few the diatonic triads: seventh chords: borrowed chords: ii IV ii7 IV7 ii° ii°7 iv

so a secondary subdominant can 7 have any subdominant function 7 chord above the slash, and ii° a IV or V below the slash. ii° however, the most commonly found secondary subdominants are those that use the half- IV diminished supertonic seventh. V to approach these chords, the most common way to use any of the basic root resolve 7 7 secondary subdominants is to movements. ii° V the corresponding secondary which are awesome. dominant. V V

licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - visit tobyrush.com for more Romantic Eramusic theory Techniques for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush 1700 1500 1600 1900 1800 2000

early 20th renaissance baroque classical romantic century contemporary however, the music of the romantic the music of the baroque, classical era employed some interesting and romantic eras share a consistent use techniques that set it apart from of harmony and , enough to cause the baroque and classical eras... theorists and historians to group them together as the “Common Practice Period.” ...and foreshadow some of the big changes coming in 11 ii° the twentieth century! V we’ve already mentioned a few chords IV that were specific to the romantic era: 13 dominant and ii° V chords, V the “flat three” , III and secondary subdominants. iv IV another technique that is unique to the romantic era is the resolution of an augmented sixth chord to a rather than a dominant triad, causing the interval of the augmented sixth to resolve obliquely instead of moving outward to the octave. Ger.6 V7 finally, romantic era composers would sometimes use a particular type of that had the effect of suspending tonality for a portion of the piece. By temporarily removing the feeling of being in a certain key, the composer could easily modulate to a distant key! if you think of ...third relations tonality like are like turning off the this technique is called being in a room... in the room third relations because it for a bit...gravity involves moving by root movements of a major or without respect to key signature.

for example... here, we’re in F major...... here, we’re just moving down by thirds... F: I IV V I DM B M ...which obscures any *whump* sense of key we had...... and then turning the gravity back on... but in a different direction! F M E M B: I IV V I and then we land in b major!

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