Last week we looked at diatonic substitution, that is, substituting chords for other chords that are in the same key. This week we'll look at chromatic substitution. Now, in chromatic harmony what we find are some chords that we don't find in any other situation. We have to give them special names. Two of these are the Neapolitan sixth chord and the augmented sixth chord. We also find composers borrowing from the parallel mode. What does that mean? It means they are in a major key and you go from a one chord to a four chord. Now, in a major key, the four chord, the subdominant chord, that's a major chord. But it's not uncommon to see a composer use the minor four chord for a coloristic effect. We'll also take a look at these chords. They're called borrowed chords and this technique is often called mode mixture, borrowing, while in the major mode, from the minor mode or vice versa. Well, I know that last week was a minor week, but now that we're in the thick of things we're going to have to use both major and minor keys each week. I'm sure no one will mind. But if we had to choose a mode for this week, well, I'd have to say I'd probably prefer minor. And the reason that is is because there are, when talking about the Neapolitan sixth chord and talking about the augmented sixth chord, you find these more in minor than you do in major. It's a coloristic effect you really find and minor. Do you find it in major? Yes, you do, but you find it less frequently. Now I have here a little progression in F minor one, two, diminished sixth, first inversion, yeah, to five and back to one. Let's just take a listen to that. Sorry. And from this progression, what we're going to do is look at this two diminished and first inversion. It's kind of funny that, you know, last week we said, well, we can substitute the four for the two chord, sorry, the two for the four chord, and now this week when we dive into talking about chromatic substitution actually we're immediately looking at the two coordinate substituting that with something else. If we look at this we've got actually just... So we can just look at the chord. We see that we have a diminished triad, and if we wanted to... Not that we would ever have any reason to do this but, under normal circumstances, but if we wanted to make this major, what would we need to alter? What we need to alter is this route. If we... change that... to that, then this chord becomes a major triad. Okay. Well, why am I even suggesting that? Well, it's because the Neapolitan chord is basically the two chord... and minor, the two diminished chord in first inversion with a lowered root. So let's do that here. We find our root here and we see it's right here and... We just lower it. Let me get this back to its original voicing. Now what I want to do is play both of these so you can hear the difference. So if I were to analyze this then, we have one, we haven't N-sixth, that's Neapolitan sixth. We have our five and then we have our one again. So this is how you notate the Neapolitan and this is how you make it, basically make a two chord in first inversion and change the root lower by step. Now, let's say we didn't know what a Neapolitan was. If you really want to go about analyzing this thing and you had no idea what a Neapolitan was, you'd say okay, well, let me look at this. Well, this is a two chord and first inversion. You would do something like flat to sixth. That really kind of explains what this chord is, right? It's a chord on the second scale degree, but the second scale degree has been lowered. It's a major triad. And, so that we have kept sort of this capital Roman numerals, and we have it in first inversion, so that really explains what this chord is. You'll never find this in analysis. Why? Because this chord is simply not in the key, and we always want to explain things in their relationship to the key. We have this special chord that shows up now and again in classical music and its analysts have, or theorists, have gone about defining it and they've called it a Neapolitan sixth chord. So, if you see this chord, where it's a lowered, it's a major, try it on a lowered second scale degree that's in first inversion. Don't analyze it as that, analyze it simply as a Neapolitan sixth chord. Now, let me just try to imagine with me that this is major. If this is major, this guy here... would be natural. And so, if you find this in major or or if you use this in major, you need to remember that you can't just lower the root, but you also have to lower the fifth. So, I just add that as a word of caution. Now I just want to show another version of it. Oh, sorry. There's one other thing I want to point out here. Look at this kind of messy interval. You know, I talked earlier about the augmented second you should avoid. Well here's, actually, kind of the reverse. This sounds like a second but it's written as a third. This is what we call a diminished third and you might say: "Oh! Edwards, you made a mistake! This is bad, this looks like... this looks like a potential sin, should we avoid this?" The answer is no. Actually, with the Neapolitan you will find this. So the Neapolitan often corners you when it comes to voice leading. It's not always the easiest chord to voice lead, but know that you've got one thing that you can do when you're dealing with an Neapolitan is from this... this lowered root to this seventh scale degree is a... is a diminished third and that you can use that. It's not a problem at all. Okay. Next. This is just another version. It's just a small difference, actually, that we start on one sixth and then we go to the Neapolitan. And then we go to one. This is what I want to really show you is that you can... One of the ways to avoid the voice leading problems here. Between the... the Neapolitan sixth and the five is to use a one-six-four in between. It actually makes it all very elegant, go from here to here, we get some country motion. We have everybody moving by step. There are no parallel octaves fits, whatever. It's very easy to just insert the one-six-four and, frequently, it solves many voice leading problems that you might face. And then from the one-six-four it's very easy to resolve to the five and then back to the one. I might play all three of these now. There's a quick introduction to the Neapolitan sixth chord.
