German 6th

[Kevin]

Can anyone help with this question?

I am taking a music class at university and stumped on how to correctly part write a German +6 chord and its resolution. Also, should it resolve to V (dominant) or to the tonic 6-4 chord? The key is f# minor. Can you help?

Can you also help with correctly writing the part for a Neapolitan 6 and its resolution in the key of A Major?

Thanks

[allanh]

Hi Kevin

These are from an old book I used on harmony....

I hope it helps

Allan

Attachments:

German 6th.bmp (152.74 KB)

Neo 6th.bmp (137.1 KB)

[Joseph]

there are irregular resolutions that are valid but in short, they basically move to V chords . . .

[Deleted]

A traditional German 6th chord in f# minor would probably look like this:

D/F#/A/B#

And would probably resolve to a I 6-4 chord like this:

C#/F#/A/C#

If you tried resolving it to a dominant chord, you would have parallel fifths:

D/ F#/A/ B#
| |
C#/E#/G#/C#

------
A Neopolitan 6th in A major might look like this:

D/Bb/F#

The Bb typically resolves to G#:

E/G#/E

But could be part of a suspension, A to G#:

E/A/E
E/G#/E

(And on a side note, an E can be replaced with D to make a dominant seventh chord.)

[Joseph]

just a quick reply, in the augmented 6/5/3 (where the raised 4th degree becomes effectively the 7th of what sounds exactly like a domninant 7th chord built on a lowered 6th degree - which needs no additional lowering in the minor scale noted by David) it would not be incorrect in common practice harmony to see those particular parallel 5ths as long as they were not between the bass & soprano voices (typically they were between the bass & tenor voice). Of course, using the i chord in 2nd inversion provides a suspension that eliminates the 5ths BUT, per Piston, it would not be incorrect to have those 5ths in common practice.

[Deleted]

There is an excellent chapter on Augmented 6th chords and Neopolitan chords in Adlwell & Schachter's book: Harmony & Voice Leading, which is, by the way, an excellent book on harmonic principles period. Here is a link to take a look at it:

link

The relevant chaper is number 29 and contained within pages 512 - 539.