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Gary, what do you mean by Ge6 in the post just above your latest post?

I'm ducking the Chopin question for now! (I'm vacillating between 1 and 3, but I figure I better have a good reason for 1 if I choose it.)

I honestly do not know what that means. Subsequent, what comes next? And if so, next chord? Next section? The reason I ask is that if we move from G7 to C, a very simple idea, then those two chords alone will strongly suggest V7 I. If, on the other hand, we have some kind of sequence, defining either of those chords is much harder, as in:

G7 C, F#7 to B, F7 to Bb. That gets rather nasty with RNs.

That kind of series might be even more common like this:

G7-5 C, F#7-5 to B, F7-5 to Bb.

Again, RNs would be tricky.

No weird semantics, no sophistry. But it is very hard to address blanket statements when there is no music to talk about, or no musical examples. I might agree with you.

Here is what I am thinking, using letters not for chord names but for the idea of sequence:

X to Y, we can judge the relationship X has to Y. That is a relative thing. But if Z comes next, and we do not yet know what Z is, we do not yet know what Y's relationship to Z is.

G7 to C. We can say that G7 is the V7 of the key of C major, and that relationship is there. But if the next chord sounds like C7, we might guess, through experience and associations, that the C7 will be spelled C E G A# and is about to slip to B/E. Or it might just be spelled normally, moving to F, the chord. Or it might go somewhere else.

I said, in another thread, that if G7 moves to C, it is highly likely, almost a given that the C chord will determine the spelling of the G7. And if the next chord is C Ge6 chord followed by E/B, the E/B chord is going to determine the spelling of the C Ge6 chord.

That is what I meant when I said that the destination chord, which may be a TEMPORARY destination chord, will determine the previous chord's spelling. I think that is simple, and it may be too simplistic. That's why I asked for examples to the contrary. If I'm wrong, I'll be glad to admit it.

G B D E#, German 6th chord, augmented 6th chord, misspelled G7 chord, G(#6), G Ge6, G ge6, G ge6th.

I always hear a German 6th chord as a "seven chord" because my hearing is based on sound, not notation. I just hear it as a "7 chord that goes somewhere different". I know how to teach it, I know how to answer test questions, I know what the "right answer is", but that is how I hear it.

Thank you for this, because I took a risk in being "simple" in my response. Your wording under the title is actually about the French, German and Italian sixths and that is what everybody generally talked about. Coming out with something less sophisticated, namely that the aug6 is a chord that has a sixth a half step higher than a major 6 sounds "simple" and stating the obvious.

I was thinking that maybe this is the first thing that we should know, and not assume that we may know it - just what is the character of the chord as a chord? So that's why I went after that. And then of course there is the "seven chord" sound which you explored. I was hesitating about the "dominant 7". The problem is that while when we say C7 we mean a specific type of chord (major triad, minor 7), the term "seven chord" is ambiguous. But "dominant" means a specific function and that again is a problem.



What I am understanding from the angle you are looking at, is that you are considering both where the chord wants to go, and what direction its notes are moving to go there (expanding or contracting). This in turn influences the spelling conventions, which among other things will influence whether that top note is a minor 7 (Gb) or its enharmonic equivalent augmented 6 (A#). Do I have it?

And then of course there are the usual rules about German, Italian, and French.

Demystification and/or other ways of seeing it?

Back when I was teaching university theory, I made this little tutorial. A lot of people seemed to find it helpful:

https://www.box.com/s/fdad7c765d0841413947

John, at the risk of appearing ignorant, I'd like to ask about this. I looked up "subsequent" as a musical term in my Harvard dictionary of musical terms and googled it with no results. Actually I think your sentence is part of a sequence of things and I'd like to understand what you are actually saying. It is quite condensed. In an attempt to understand I'll try to take it apart and paraphrase which I hope is ok.

"Aug 6ths rarely present an ambiguity where we have to wait for a resolution to clarify. The expectations set up by aug 6ths are rarely subverted by composers in their resolutions unlike in the case of 7ths. What follows a harmony may be determined (by no means always) by that harmony but a subsequent never defines what precedes it; if anything it can only define a specific context. "

I understand that you are setting up how the aug 6th is different than the 7th chord. In the first sentence you are saying that the 7th has ambiguity (can do a number of things) but the aug6 does not have that character. " The expectations set up by aug 6ths are rarely subverted by composers in their resolutions unlike in the case of 7ths. " This says the same thing.

What follows a harmony may be determined (by no means always) by that harmony.... I am guessing that "what follows a harmony" actually gives us the definition of "subsequent" because that is what this word means literally.

"... but a subsequent never defines what precedes it; " so what follows the harmony cannot define what is before it.

When you say "a harmony" - would the aug6 chord be "a harmony"? So in other words, if I understand this:
the aug6 is set up in such a way that what follows it must go a certain way, and that makes it unambiguous, unlike the seven chord, in view of your whole paragraph?

I am with Gary that it might be easier to follow with an actual example. Requesting an example is not a case of challenging, but of getting a picture of what you are saying.

Do composers sometimes use these chords deceptively? Kreisler's explanation sheet says the augmented sixth chords are built on the flat sixth scale degree and resolve outward to the dominant. For example, Ab C Eb F# resolving to G B D G in the key of C.

But equally you could take any seventh chord, and resolve it outwards. For example, in the key of C, start with G B D F. Rewrite F as E# if you're feeling fussy. Resolve, not to C, but to F#.

Hmmm, I think I've just managed to recapitulate what Gary's been saying. Now I need to look at his Beethoven and Chopin examples and see if they're the textbook variety of bVI(aug6) resolving to V, or if they're this other deceptive kind.

I can see how the textbook variety might announce itself aurally, because if you had clever ears, you could hear those two chromatic tones as being chromatic, and perhaps with enough aural experience come to expect it to resolve to V (or to I 64 and then V). That sets up a new way for composers to be deceptive: resolve as if the German 6th were a dominant 7th. E.g. in the key of C, go to Ab Ge6. Adjust the spelling to Ab7 if you wish. The listener can't tell what spelling you're using, though. Then resolve, not to G or C 64, but to Db.

OK, now I'm sure I'm just recapitulating what's already been said. But it's starting to make sense to me.

It's Chopin doing a little bit of everything. The G Major on beat 1 is something of a pivot chord. It serves as III, the relative Major of e minor, but it also serves as vi in b minor.

Of course, the notes G and B are also common to two other predominant harmonies in b minor - iv and ii (half dim 7). Chopin adds the E (also found in iv and ii) in beat 2 of the LH, along with the F.

And the F is an interesting note - it could be seen as a lower neighbor to the F# or as a respelled E# of an (incorrectly) resolved Gr+6.

In the moment, however, it's not necessarily heard as such, since it could also be a simple G7 - an applied dominant leading to C Major, or V7/VI in e minor.

The "incorrect" resolution is also interesting, since the parallel fifths (G-F# and D-C#) exist regardless of how we interpret the chord.

Except that Chopin's not an idiot. The reason parallel fifths are to be avoided is that they don't make for very good counterpoint, but Chopin isn't writing counterpoint in the LH, he's writing a simpler harmonic texture, so the parallel fifths (in addition to being somewhat obscured by an octave displacement that takes the middle line D to the higher D) aren't a problem.

Regardless of how we analyze it (and this is probably a case where any good analysis would take the form of prose rather than simple labeling), the fact remains that Chopin has given us a very clever bit of harmonic sleight-of-hand that makes perfect sense. That is, until you try to make sense of it.

This is VERY nice.

I think you would be a bit mean to make your students work out augmented 6th chords in the key of Gb. In F# it is a snap, and then F# minor is covered too.

Your key of Gb is going to ask for an Ebb7, Eb G Bb Db coverted to Ebb Gb Gbb Dbb, then respelled to Ebb Gb Bb *D*. This immediately solves your third example. Convert to SATB and it flows effortlessly to Gb/Db, then cadence.

Someone like Chopin would do it, and probably does somewhere. Thinking about this a bit more, it may be the reason he chose F# major and not Gb major for his Barcarolle.

Specific augmented sixth chords are used on bVI. Those include the three "countries", Italian, French and German. But beware: they are the bVI chords of the key you are GOING to, not NECESSARILY of the one you are IN. And no key signature is necessary to tell you your new destination. They either take you up to bVI, in the key you are already in and then back down again (net result is no movment) - OR they allow you to jump to ANY other key.

Example: I am in C major. I would like to jump to B:

C F C *G7* B/F# F#7 B. I am in a new key. I moved down 1/2 step. G7, which I always explain as the "misspelled" seven chord, must then be spelled G B D E#, or USUALLY is. There are exceptions, but mostly in Romantic music and later, and not in counterpoint.

Another example: I am in C major. I do this:

C F C *G7-5* F# B C# C#7 F#. I have now moved to F# major. My misspelled G7-5, G B C# E, which is spelled like a French 6th, is not one because it is treating my G7-5 as a bII.

I wish I had the energy to notate this. The chord symbols are confusing. Be sure to insert spaces between each chord.

I hope I am not being horrendously complicated. In person I could show you this in a heartbeat.

There is an ending in a Chopin prelude in which he moves from a sweeping Db7 chord with a downward arpeggio straight to Fm. So here it is in the bVI position, the right degree, but the jump is absolutely non-standard, and therefore VERY cool.

There is another composition in which he uses a Gr6, using Kreisler's abbreviation, but he appears to "misspell" it. He uses the conventional V7 spelling until the LAST repetiton of the chord, then there he switches the spelling to show function. If you are looking for rules, Chopin will totally screw you up, and so will the compositions of MANY fine composers, but if you study them long enough, the reason for not following rules - which I think of more as conventions that are guidelines - become clear. In the end, although you may not agree with the choice, it can always be defended. Geniuses seldom make such choices out of sheer ignorance or from carelessness.

The important thing is always to use SOUND as your guide, not NOTATION. If it feels like a duck and sounds like a duck, in music it does does not have to LOOK like a duck.

What comes after the F# chord will tell you if you are really going there (I chord) or if F# is the dominant and is going next to B or Bm

That is exactly correct. But rewriting is not fussy, because that E# is going to move up to F#. In general, whenever a voice moves chromatically, you try to avoid repeating a letter, which F to F# does.

Beethoven's chord is an Italian 6th, conventional spelling. But the top note jumping from C to G is not typical of earlier periods. It is a jolt. A stabbing chord. Bam, Bam. Always expect Beethoven to do the unexpected, equally true of all geniuses.

Here is what you are leading to: Cm G7 Cm, Ab7 Db, Ab7 Db, G7 Cm. That is a jolt, ragged, harsh, in your face, so very Beethoven like, just shaking different dominants in your face. There A7 will be spelled in the ordinary manner.

Similar, but also different:

C G7 C, Ab7 Db7 Ab7 Db7, *Ab7* C/E G7 C. Now the LAST Ab7 chord will be respelled as the Gr6 chord because it slides back to C. Spelling shows where it is going. Where it is going determines spelling. If the spelling convention is not followed, you will not have trouble reading it or hearing it, because the function is independent of the notation. And that is why I call a Gr6 a 7 chord, for students but warn them to put, in parentheses, Gr6. This links the sound, which does not change, to the spelling, which usually does.

Kreisler, I had a look at this last night. The first line describes these as predominants. I have seen augmented 6th chords used in many different ways in music, especially in music that moves out of the Common Practice period. What you wrote reminds me of the basic mainstream theory I am studying, where for example you have the pivot chord and gradual movement, and also sudden movement through a chromatic change. The models are very specific and that makes them easy to understand and follow. When we get to real music - even of that period - we find a much greater variety. Is that essentially the context of the predominant idea? One way we will find the aug6 used, but not the only way?

Augmented sixths are always a predominant.

There may be additional decoration - various passing motion, suspensions, or things, but they essentially remain predominant in function.

(A wonderful example is the famous "Tristan" chord. It's an augmented sixth with an incomplete lower neighbor that leads to a V chord without the 3rd that remains unresolved. But if you look at the context of how the opening plays out, it's definitely an augmented sixth.)

Since an augmented sixth resolves to a major triad, why can't it just stop there and treat the triad as I, instead of insisting on the augmented sixth being a predominant and treating the triad as V? In other words, why can't the augmented sixth be built on bII instead of bVI?

So, for example an Italian sixth Ab C F#, resolving outwards to G major. Why can't the piece just stay in G? Why does it have to treat G as a dominant and continue on to C?

I have seen theory viewed from different angles under different contexts. Whenever you move in a framework it is important to stay in that framework. But frameworks have edges and reality moves beyond those edges. I have seen more than one framework or system. It would be unfortunate if we only stayed in one.

It's like I've been given a new train set, and I want to immediately crash the locomotive into walls and fly it off the tops of dressers turning it into an airplane, instead of running it on the tracks as it was intended. .

I played a French sixth today and resolved it, and was very pleased that I could hear how nice the resolution felt.

I also discovered that what I call "shimmering" others might call "unstable." (I had a friend over, listening to me, and unstable was the word she used for the French sixth.)

No. Augmented 6ths with the names German, Italian and French are predominant because they have been defined that way.

As I have repeatedly pointed out and tried to show, perhaps unsuccessfully, is that this narrow definition is textbook thinking and will get either of us an A on a theory exam EXPECTING that exact answer.

But to say an augmented 6th chord is always a predominant assumes:

1) Any augmented 6th chord that does not resolve to a V is not an augmented 6th chord.
2) Only the German, Italian and French 6ths are augmented 6ths.

Under that narrow definition this:

Db F Ab B

Going to this:

C E G C

Is not an augmented 6th chord if it is followed by by an F, Dm, C/G, G7 C, making it a bII chord, not a bVI.

No predominant there.

I'm ready to talk about that any time. What a WONDEFUL progression that is!

I always like to stick to music, so lets "talk Wagner"!!!

I suddenly had a picture of the original Cinderella story. The ugly stepsisters couldn't fit their big feet into the glass slipper, so they changed the shape of their foot to make it fit. Any formal theory about anything creates a good generalization about some reality. It tends to fit in most situations. But it gets fuzzy at the edges and at some point you have to squeeze reality more and more to make it fit that particular system. It forces you to see reality according to that particular system. That is why it is handy to have more than one system (eventually). I imagine that the predominant idea works well in many situations, and we can imagine implied dominants when we get to the edges, but that there can also be *other* ways of perceiving.

No problem. Thank you very much for your terrific detailed reply. Working from the chord symbols, it makes me really absorb what's going on by writing them out myself in notation. Now I also have to try them out at the piano and hear what they sound like. (I'm at work, but haven't brought my keyboard to work yet, so I'm just here with my music paper procrastinating on a software installation....)

Chopin Prelude in F Minor

Page 35 in the book, Page 41 in the pdf file, last line:

Db7 moves directly to Fm.

Interesting note: in one edition, by Palmer, the first octave is B natural, then the chord immediately following changes to Db. In this one, Mikuli, and in other editions I've checked, the octave is Db, enharmonic.

1) Palmer made a mistake.
2) Palmer, who was meticulous about observing sources, kept an idiosyncratic choice in at least one choice.

If 2 is correct, then other editors "fixed" this odd notation, which is logical to me. But Palmer's is logical too, because it announces an augmented 6th chord (theory), but then changes the spelling to the more readable Db7 spelling, which is clear and very pianistic.

The following measure has no chord, so the feeling of Fm is implied before the final cadence that confirms the key of F minor.

If the Db is correct throughout - which would be my choice - then the spelling conflicts with the function of the chord IF we accept augmented 6th spellings as the Word of God.

Chopin Nocturne in C# Minor
P. 35 in the score, P. 4 in the pdf file...

Chopin modulates to the key of Db at the con anima.

Now, go to line three, measure two.

There Chpoin uses a Db7-5, respells the top note from Cb to B, then slides to C major. So it Chopin, in the key of Db, wants to slide down to the key of C major. He isn't going to be there long, but you can hear.

So it's a bII going to I. NO WAY is it a V.

So, again, we have something that is clearly an augmented 6th chord, and in every way it sounds exactly like a French 6th chord, but we can't call it that because it is not a predominant.

Instead, it the EXACT same thing you hear jazz players talk about: tritone exchange. Since G7-5 is G B Db F, and Db7-5 is Db F G Cb, when Chopin uses the augmented 6th, Db-B, he simply inverts the G7-5, an altered dominant, thus EXCHANGING it for the Db7-5.

And that is what jazz players often refer to as the "tritone exchange".

Another example of how real music does not fit into boxes, and how all styles of music are much more closely related than is normally taught.

This is why we need a Big Picture approach.