MUSI310 - Week 5Neapolitan 6 and Augmented 6

Expanding our PD chords

• In addition to the chromatic material we discussed in last weeks lecture, as embellishments or deviation in melodic or single voice writing, this week will explore harmonic chromatic exploration.

• Specifically, we will be looking at two types of pre-dominant chords, Neapolitan 6ths and four types of Augmented 6ths.

Predominant chords

A predominant chord is any chord that comes before and leads towards the dominant of a scale.

These include the common ii and IV chords but there is room to expand this thinking to include chromatic deviations from the key area. These chords are often used to strengthen and highlight the function of the dominant chords.

Perhaps the most common type of predominant chord outside of a key area is a secondary dominant. However, today we will focus on

Predominant chords

A predominant chord is any chord that comes before and leads towards the dominant of a scale.

These include the common ii and IV chords but there is room to expand this thinking to include chromatic deviations from the key area. These chords are often used to strengthen and highlight the function of the dominant chords.

Perhaps the most common type of predominant chord outside of a key area is a secondary dominant. However, today we will focus on

Neapolitan Chords

• One of the most common chromatic predominant chord is the Neapolitan chord.

• This chord is built around the flattened second degree. It is often called a Neapolitan 6 chord due to its use in first inversion.

Neapolitan Chords

• Neapolitan chords outline a quirky voice leading problem. The flat second is forced to move by a diminshed 3rd to the leading tone of the scale. This is often smoothed over by way of a passing note.

Uses of a Neapolitan Chord

• While a neapolitan chord can be used within a key area as a predominant chord to highlight the dominant. It can also be used to move outside of a key area, where the tonic of the current key is treated as the bii of a new key - specifically its 7th.

• For example, one might use C Major a the flat second of B major.

• This effectively tonicises the vii of a scale.

• Example: What's This – Danny Elfman

Augmented 6 ChordsClendinning and Marvin use the example of a Mozart

Piano Sonata to look at how a usual predominant chord (IV) can be extended by semitone to introduce a new family of predominant chords, the Augmented 6 chord.

The Augmented 6 chord outline the interval between the flat 6 and sharp 4 of a scale. Both of these tones resolve by semitone to the dominant degree. See the below example in C Major:

Types of Augmented 6 chordsThere are three types of Aug 6 chord. All of these are

built around the interval of an augmented 6 and all include the tonic of the scale to complete the dominant triad.

Italian – #4 – b6 – 1

French – Adds to this the 2

German – Adds to It6 the b3

Voice Leading for Aug 6 ChordsAll Aug 6 chord make use of the strong semitone resolution in

the outer parts. The b6 in the bass resolves down to the dominant while the #4 in the upper voice resolves up to the dominant. The tonic which is often double and placed in the middle of the chord resolves down by semitone to become the 3rd of chord V. It can also step up to become the 5th of chord V for It6 chords.

For French 6 chords, the added 2nd degree will remain as it is a shared tone with Chord V.

Voice leading for Aug 6 chordsAs explored in the textbook, care must be taken when

writing in formal four part style as the German 6 chord can possibly outline parallel 5ths. To offset this, many examples will use an embellishment and resolve the V chord after the 1st beat. Similar to our discussion last week. See below:

Uses of Aug 6 chordsThere area a number of ways to use the Aug6 chords. They

often pop up in 'standards' where they will often be written enharmonically, avoiding the augmented interval and instead seeming to deviate from the key area entirely. This is also common in jazz progressions. However, the semitone resolution and function is often the same.

The German6 chord can be used, enharmonically, as a secondary dominant to help tonicise the Neapolitan.

In C major, for example, the German 6 chord (Ab-C-Eb-F#) also functions as an Ab7 which can lead to Db as a new tonic area, which is a Neapolitan bII of C major.