Music Theory: Augmented Sixth Chords.
Vložit
- čas přidán 26. 03. 2016
- Another family of chromatic chords! This video goes into detail about defining +6 chords and talking about their common and uncommon uses.
0:21 Definitions
3:24 Common Types
4:40 The Italian +6
5:48 The German +6
7:54 The French +6
9:50 Voice Leading
12:50 Uncommon Resolutions & Variants
17:28 Chorale - Hudba
I really needed this as a refresher for my Masters Course. Thank you sir
Thank you sir, your videos have saved my ass in preparing for Masters diagnostics exams.
Glad to help. Good luck!
Great explanation - and better paced than a lot of the videos out there - some of them rush through the material a bit too quickly.
Hi!
Your video helped me a lot revising this content. I would like to suggest you to include how the chords sound like, this way, we can learn to recognize them also by hear.
But again, your video helped tremendously.
Thank you!!!
This is an excellent tutorial video, thank you so much indeed!!
I love music theory and appreciate videos like these. This would have been great reference for me, but as soon as the word "solfege" is mentioned, I check out. (Because of my own deficiencies) Thank you for posting.
If we think of the +6 chord as being a rootless IIx with various alterations of b5 b9, this shows where these augmented 6th chords were derived.
The Ger +6 is a IIx (b5 b9) without the root. D7(b5 b9) with the root "D" omitted.
It is perfectly fine to think that way, but that is not how they were "derived". They actually began to appear before the concept of chords having a root was even proposed in 1722 by Rameau. It is largely considered that they evolved from a iv6 resolving via a phrygian half-cadence to the V, and a passing raised fourth would sometimes appear for flavor. The French 6 certainly took inspiration from a V43 of V though and the German 6 was also some experimenting around that model, but to my knowledge they came later and are easily explained as an anticipation and a neighbor tone respectively. You see the Italian 6 even in early baroque music though. Do not misunderstand me for claiming there is anything wrong in that logic, simply that theory was not there yet when these chords began to appear and the idea of a rootless chord was nothing like the concept would be later. As the video said, these largely are the result of voice leading, and were not treated like structural harmonies. I was surprised the video did not mention the "Mozart Fifths" though, as the German 6 was one of the rare situations in which parallel fifths were considered acceptable, and you do see it resolve straight to five, parallel fifths and all....Mozart did this enough to bestow his surname to the habit.
thank you
I have a question. Near the end of the fugue from Beethoven's Opus 131 in C-sharp min, there is an aug-6th chord built on D and in 3rd inversion (B-sharp in the bass), and that resolves to a C-sharp maj root position chord. Do we conclude that the "key" is really F-sharp min?
The video here outlines the most typical uses of the chords, but certainly musicians can diverge from typical uses. Less frequent uses might include "inverted" chords like you describe as well as +6 chords that don't resolve to dominants. So I wouldn't count your observation as conclusive evidence by itself - key perception takes a lot of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic things into account - but it might be a piece of a larger analytical argument!
@@DavidEFarrell Thanks for the reply. I saw a video discussing the history of how theorists have tried to determine whether the aug-6th chord has a root or not, including a "non-sounding" root. In the Beethoven example, the harmonic context is clearly C-sharp min, and so the aug-6th chord is a Neapolitan chord with the addition of a sixth. So I don't see why it would be incorrect to simply say that the root is D.
Wouldn't an Italian +6 chord resolving to I be in the key of IV? Since I would technically be a dominant since it is being resolved to by the IT+6. So it would be IT+6/IV - V/IV (I in your example) - I(IV)
Hello! Your reasoning is indeed sound. But key and tonality do depend on the overall context of the music. Sometimes the chord in question might be used to modulate to IV, but if we never get that modulation, then we have to consider describing the chord in a different way that better shows what is going on.
@@DavidEFarrell totally! So I think it's +6 Ness would be called into question, since +6s are only used as PDs correct? Or can you have a +6 that resolves to I?
@@Dannys_uncanny PD is the typical function; you are correct that this would be an unusual function! This sort of analysis requires a bit more explanation than just a label; the voice-leading might have enough similarity to other +6 chords that the comparison is useful, but the function might be different.
@@DavidEFarrell very cool! Almost more an artifact of voice leading than a functional +6, thank you so much
@@Dannys_uncanny I know this comment is from a long time ago, but I think I have something to add. When the +6 is used to lead to the tonic, it seems to resemble the function of a tritone substitution in jazz, especially when the Ger+6 is used. To clarify, because the tritone in a Dominant 7 (major 3, minor 7) chord remains if you use a root a tritone away from the normal fifth-degree root, the function of the chord stays the same but the root motion chromatically leads into the I. This is often used to turn a ii-V-I progression into a ii-bII-I, allowing for a smooth voice leading in the bass while still feeling the circle-of-fifths directionality.