chord sequence

Hi Alex_,
If you really are in G Dorian, well that's a mode and the Gr6 is a tonal chord, so there is little relevance to the issue.  The relative key for G Dorian is F major/D Minor (one flat).  The chord you spelled, F# A C D, isn't an aug6 chord in any key; it's V765 in G.  I'll assume that G is the tonic so the Gr6 is in the “key” of G minor.  It would be commonly spelled:

G
C#
Bb
Eb

The Gr6 usually resolves to the 2nd inversion I/i chord before the V to avoid the parallel 5th:

G – G – F#
C# - D - D
Bb – Bb - A
Eb – D – D

This is Gr6 i64 V in G minor.

Now, as a pivot chord, the Gr6 could act as the new V (in this case Ab, since the Gr6 in G is enharmonic to V7 in Ab):

G      
C# (Db)
Bb
Eb

With the Gr6, you must resolve the augmented 6th interval correctly.   The augmented 6th in this case is Eb – C#; it must resolve outward to the octave D-D (or, if you pivot the Gr6 as V7, then you must resolve the V7 correctly).

If you're determined to use the Gr6, then you'd probably have to resolve it in key and pivot the V chord in Gm as the III chord in Bm.  Then just cadence in the new key:

Gm:  Gr6 i64 V Bm: (III) VI iiº V7 i (cadence on Bm)

I don't see a way you can use the Gr6 to directly modulate from Gm to Bm (or F/Dm to Bm) without using some really bad voice leading.

you play the dominant chord afterwards... (so the 2 chromatic notes, the augmented 4th and the minor 6th) 'resolve' a semitone back in and then you play the tonic..

this chord isnt about the key you were IN, its about the key you want to GO to.

like say im in... E major and i want to get to.. G major..

the dominant note of G is D..

so take a semi-tone both ways .. D# and Eb..

and a 5th down from D is... G..

so we have G D# Eb..

now say i want a french 6th i add the supertonic note (A).

G A D# Eb

its a chromatic chord and has a very weird sound but then you play the D chord...

and the D# and Eb resolve.. then you play G (tonic)

so its like

Mixed Up Keys then Augmented 6th weird sounding chord and then Dominant, weird sound resolved finally ending by a Tonic chord which has just been a perfect cadence then it fits..

or you can resolve it to a I/c (like mozart did)

im sorry if you meant this and i misread your post but the way you did it and the way i did it differed.

*********************************

Thats the way i see it..

you have started building this Gr6 chord on the tonic..

whereas i need this chord to resolve to the dominant of B minor (F#) and therefore i have chosen this chord here.

I understand that, well this thread is actually going way off topic i just wanted to know if i could resolve any augmented 6th chord to a dominant 7th, then to another dominant 7th leading me into my new key.

Alex_, I'm beginning to think that you don't really know what  an augmented 6th chord is.  Augmented 6th chords are primarily used as dominant preparation chords and not pivot chords.  The usage of the Gr6 as means of modulation came way after its usage as a dominant preparation chord.  The chord you spelled, G A D# Eb, again, is not an augmented 6th chord.  Where's the augmented 6th interval?  The D# and Eb will sound exactly the same since they are enharmonic.  The Fr6 in G is Eb G A C#; the It6 is Eb G C#.  An aug6th chord is not built off the tonic - it is not a tonic chord.  The only tones that could be called the tonic of an aug6th chord are, in this case, the Eb or the C# (le or fi).  Please show me how you intend to resolve the Gr6 in G to an C#7 or an F#7 with proper voice leading.

"Augmented 6th chords are primarily used as dominant preparation chords "

..yeah i know, thats what im doing.

"The D# and Eb will sound exactly the same "

..mistake, i meant D# and Db

"An aug6th chord is not built off the tonic - it is not a tonic chord."

...Yes I Know, where did i say it was, it is a chord used to change keys, and i have had many conversations with my Music teachers about this chord, and with NoteBoat, i do know what they are.

"Please show me how you intend to resolve the Gr6 in G to an C#7 or an F#7 with proper voice leading. "

an augmented 6th can be built on any degree of a scale, the leading tones resolve to a C#7.. dominant preparation for F#7.. dominant preparation for B minor.

***

The fact that i even mentioned G Dorian or whatever i was in was totally irrelevant, because my usage of the chord has nothing to do with the key i was in (was=previous tense, not any more, going somewhere else).

consider K331..

Trio movement, he is in the development section of this form and in, cant remmember exaclty i think its Ab major.. well, a very far away key..

and he uses a German 6th built on the subdominant of the key (A).. which is D..

then resolves it to the dominant, then back to the tonic (A)..

therefore using it to change keys to safely make a rapid but smooth moove to a far away key.

***

All i have done is exactly the same, except i stuck a dominant 7th before the dominant chord of the key THAT I wanted to go to.

Oh boy...
Alex_, you have yet to demonstrate you can resolve an aug6th chord, and you have yet to prove you can even spell one.  I was trying to help you out - if you already know everything, why did you ask if you were using the Gr6 properly?  

Unfortunately, I don't have K331 at hand but I'll dig it up and check it out.    

A couple of things to add here...

Serickso's right in the resolution of the German 6th, with one caveat -- we avoid parallel fifths, but parallel 5ths are sometimes used between the bass and tenor voices, so the chord could be recast as

C#
Bb
G
Eb

and resolve directly to the V:

C# - D
Bb - A
G - F#
Eb - D

As he said, voice leading is important.

Alex, I don't have K331 near at hand either, so I don't have the score in front of me... but in looking over the earlier correspondence that you and I had, it looks more like the Italian 6th to me -- an Augmented 6th, to be sure, but a different one.

Tom

Serickso, sorry, i am really really stubborn, and never admit when im wrong, but hey, who isnt?

not 'wrong' more confused, so much was left out of what i was taught about augmented sixth's i didnt know about..

for instance..

NoteBoat

an Augmented 6th, to be sure, but a different one.

I was under the impression they were all the same, and only the tenor voice altered what type of augmented sixth chord it was.

Is there another type of Augmented sixth chord beyond the French, Italian, German, Double-Augmented Fourth ??

this is the way i saw it work..

[working in C]

get notes for chord -> C Eb F# Ab
arrange them (bass->soprano) -> Ab C Eb F#

F#
Eb
C
Ab bass

then the minor 6th (Ab) and the aug4 (F#) resolve like

F# -> G
Eb
C
Ab -> G

and then the C moves down a semi-tone to a B

F# -> G
Eb
C -> B
Ab -> G

and finally the Eb moves down a semi-tone to a D

F# -> G
Eb -> D
C -> B
Ab -> G

and thats how i thought it worked..

so 2 chords, and that is how you could easily move to the dominant of any key.

I will have to look up this parallel 5th thing..

also i didnt *totally* understand what you meant by 'voice leading'

..sorry about yesterday, i was in a bit of a mood, and i usually take it out on everyone.  :)

Hi Alex_, no worries mate.  

NoteBoat:  Thanks for chiming in (and pointing out the parallel 5ths rule!).

I looked over the Mozart and I found the chord I believe you're referring to:

K331, Trio section, measure 33 we have the It6 (could make a case for a hint of Gr6 when the F natural appears immediately after the G natural appoggiatura).  This resolves to the V exactly as expected.  I do see what you mean about it seeming that we're in A (the dominant of the key in the Trio) but, despite the G#'s, it doesn't sound like I in A, it sounds like V in D.  If you listen to it, you'll hear that that whole section in A sounds like dominant build up, finally resolving to D in Measure 37.  The G#'s are so typical of the chromaticism in Mozart – it looks like A is tonicized and, in a way, it is, but the overall sound of the section is dominant in the key.  I realize this issue gets into the question of what constitutes a modulation (and that is beyond the scope of what we're discussing here – but we can get into it if you like) but even if you do consider it a modulation to A, it's still the dominant in the overall sound of the Trio, which makes the It6 appearance and resolution very standard.  

BTW – your resolution of Gr6 above is correct (parallel 5ths notwithstanding!)  

I know the Piston/DeVoto book mentions a "Swiss" aug6th (enharmonic to the Gr6) but you don't see it to often (I don't think I've ever come across it).

Hey,

well i have spent the last few month's studying mozart (this piece) for my A-level music exam.
And i was taught this chord was a German 6th.
so i guess i kinda stuck with that, i still will because if my music teacher thinks i should look at it in that way, then i will.

When he was teaching us about the Menuetto and Trio he was saying its like Sonata Form, with 1st and 2nd tunes representing the first and second subject.. and there is a development section, no recapitulation and a coda.

So he was saying mozart goes wandering through all differnet keys (allthough marked as D) and then he said mozart wanted to get back to the tonic, which would be D.
so the way he did it was this chord.

**

Hang on a sec, its just clicked, its not going back to A in its resolution, its going to the dominant of D, which is A, cos D is the subdominant of A.

Its kinda making sense, so, he builds this Gr6 chord on D, so the aug4 and the min3 resolve to A.. and then resolve a 5th down to the tonic (or tonic minor, well, mozart fiddles around and pretends he is going to the tonic then unexpectadly goes of course for a bit then goes to the tonic D.

This is all i saw this chord as, to go from *LOST* to *HOME*.

I remmember my teacher saying, about the melody of this chord, it was the G natural appogiatura leading to the F natural which just meant it was falling INTO a Gr6 chord.

Because later on, mozart uses like an A-C# interval and playes the 5th (E) in the melody a bit further along, and he said thats exactly what mozart did in the Gr6 chord bit.

**

Sorry to bug but can you explain the parallel fifth thing and the voice leading thing too?

what is a parallel fifth? why do people avoid it? why is it an issue brough up with this chord?

Thanx!

Are you guys music students?  Now I realize why I drink.  It makes me not care about what I don't know.  Just kidding, but your posts have decidely made my head hurt   :o   .  I feel just how I did 2 years ago reading the simple theory.  Now I undersand that stuff.  Maybe another couple of years from now I'll be able to come back to this post and say "aw yea, I got that down."  Just make sure someone PM's me in February '06, ok?

Alex,

Most of the 'rules' of theory, harmony, and counterpoint come from what's sounded good in the past -- the whole reason for theory is to create a framework of what works and what doesn't, based on experience.

As you might have gathered from the labeling of voices (soprano-alto-tenor-bass), many of these rules come from vocal music.  In most complex forms of music, you can consider each voice independent of the others -- reading that voice horizontally -- and you can also consider how the voices function together -- reading vertically.

When you have two voices, they can move in one of three ways: they can move the same way (similar motion), they can move in different directions (contrary motion), or one voice can stay put while the other one moves (oblique motion).  

Similar motion, when both voices move the same way, can result in different intervals:

A-G
C-B

gives us a major sixth (C-A) moving to a minor sixth (B-G), and the difference in quality gives our ears some variety.

Parallel motion is a sub-type of similar motion, where both voices move in the same direction by exactly the same amount:

A-G
C-Bb

And if you string these together, it sounds boring to the ear.  Hence, the rule of thumb is to avoid parallel intervals.  There are exceptions, and I'm sure your teachers will cover these when you study harmony and counterpoint.

Voice leading is essentially how the various movements of the voices lead you (horizontally) through the (vertical) chord changes -- how the individual melodies naturally create the harmonies of a piece.  The issue comes up in resolving this chord, because simply jumping from one chord to the next, although it might make perfect sense harmonically, can make a disastrous sounding piece of music.  A composer needs to keep one eye on the melody, and one on the harmony at all times (the other eyes he keeps on the rhythm, the form, the orchestration, the dynamics...)

Tom

"Most of the 'rules' of theory, harmony, and counterpoint come from what's sounded good in the past -- the whole reason for theory is to create a framework of what works and what doesn't, based on experience. "

Quite true.  If you consider the instruments and tuning being used at the time these rules were being developed, it's not difficult to understand why these rules came about.  I remember one of my professors always telling us that we should go out and hear a pipe organ and talk to the organist, and ask him if he'll play parallel 5ths!  They sound terrible (vocal ensembles are another telling medium).  Parallel 5ths stick out so much, that it basically mars any musical texture.  You will find parallel 5ths here and there (I found some in a Lassus motet) but they are rare.  When they are present, they're placed in such a way as to not stand out.  

In general, proper voice leading will have all voices moving in the shortest, smoothest possible motion (except for melodic or effect considerations).  That's saying a lot more than just what it seems at face value.  You have to learn the tendencies of melodic motion while keeping in mind the harmonic implications (as NoteBoat stated).  

quized the teacher for a bit today.

this is why i think he is great.

"What is a parallel 5th sir?"

A parallel fifth eh? when you play two power chords, just like on smoke on the water, *plays it on piano*..
in baroque music they liked it *played a famous tune i recognise but dont know, sounded great* then in Bach's time they hated it and never used it.

**

so im guessing thats the easy way to put what you have been saying.. and now understanding how easy it is.. i can go back to your posts about it and totally understand it.

so like any parallel motion is just the same interval played and then moved

A, D

then

D G.

an interval of a perfect fourth, then moved up a fourth.

or does it only count when theyre next to each other?

A D
B E

(the interval is going horizontally, A and D, B and E).

i read this quote somewhere

Traditional harmony rules say that the Gr6 chord should always resolve to I/c before V and I.

is this to avoid the parallel fifth thing?

F# G
Eb  E
C   C
Ab G

and the Eb moves down a semi-tone, and the Ab moves down a semi-tone, and that would be a parallel fifth and therefore i am lost.

Okay, i know what would help me.

can someone post a way like i did up there.. of how to resolve a Gr6 chord avoiding the parallel fifth?

i know parallel fifths are no big deal now and i like the sound of them, they are just like power chords on the guitar its just it seems to be an issue, how would of composers resolved this chord during the period it was out of fashion?