Thank you so much for your great journey on the augmented 6th. It's been a pleasure to listen to you all your info and examples! You're very talented as teacher! Keep going doing those great lessons!
I've been waiting for this one. My teacher loves augmented 6th chords, so I've always wanted to be able to understand what he's talking about. Thanks so much
All it really is is a tritone sub of V7/V if you really think about it. Especially the german one. Its spelled really weirdly though im guessing because composers didnt have a name for it back then and didnt know what it was
It's 100% true that augmented sixth chords sound similar (or identical) to what modern musicians would call "a tritone sub of V7/V." And if that's a helpful way to think about them, go for it. But the "all it really is" angle is rather too ahistorical. (1) There's very little compositional evidence that composers in this style understood the principle of tritone substitution before 1875 or so, where it starts turning up in Brahms, Debussy, et al.; (2) if composers 300 years ago were "really" just using a tritone sub for V7/V, why didn't they use tritone subs for other dominants?**; (3) the spelling makes complete sense from the perspective of voice leading, which is how 18th/19th-century composers would have understood it (i.e., it would make no sense to a composer in 1830 to spell a chord in C minor [Ab-C-Eb-Gb] and then resolve the Gb UPWARD to G; chromatic accidentals indicate directionality); (4) thinking of aug6 chords has having a root on b6 masks the critical relationship they have to iv6, which is the chord that behaves most similarly in this style. ** There are scattered cases in the early 19th century of aug6 chords built above b2, which can sound like the tritone sub for the regular V7. But the fact that those chords are always spelled *as aug6 chords* and not as dominants suggests that composers didn't think of them as "dominant sevenths," let alone "dominants that substitute for other dominants."
@@SethMonahan you're absolutely correct on every single point. I guess I wasnt viewing both as those from 2 different systems and applying it to only 1 system. As I mentioned, I don't think the composers viewed it as a "tritone sub". But I do think the composers "understood" the sound they were making obviously in a intuitive sense. I should have thought more about my comment. Thank you for the thoughtful reply!
@@DeadpoolPlayz No worries! I realize now that I omitted something important: when harmonic thinking became more explicitly chordal in the 19th century, theorists struggled mightily with how to understand aug6 chords, because they believed that all chords must have roots. The problem is that, based on spelling, each of the three aug6 chords has a *different* root! But-and this relates to your point-it was common to think of the French aug6 as an alteration of V7/V-i.e., like a second-inversion V7/V with a flattened chordal fifth. That's not the same thing as thinking of them as "substitutes," but there IS a theoretical traditional of correlating one of the aug6 chords to V7/V!
This channel has really help be consolidate some vague ideas that I've had about harmony and pitch relationships through the last few years. Lesson 18, with its brilliant demonstration of the importance of context when "unscrambling" words has reinforced this belief I have that, for example, enharmonic intervals just *sound* different because of the musical context they're in. A more beginner student might say it's "stupid" to call that chord an "augmented 6th", because "an augmented 6th is the same as a minor 7th!", but the harmonic context _clearly_ shows that an augmented sixth just has a _peculiar_ sound to it. It's not a minor 7th. And then, I watched this video, and this tied perfectly to a song I had been thinking about earlier today. The song "Asa", by Brazilian songwriter Djavan, has a guitar groove based on the chords Dm7 - Bb7 - A7(b13). I realise that, in the pop/jazz idiom, the Bb7 is more commonly called a "tritone sub", and it might be pedantic to use terminology that's specific to common practice period music and apply it to popular music. However, the way Djavan's bass line moves from Bb to Ab in that Bb7 chord just happens to have _exactly_ that "tangy" sound you mention in that video. It never sounded to me like a "regular" minor 7th. And that's when I realised: that chord really is an augmented 6th chord. Even though it's far more customary to call it a tritone sub (and tritone subs are more flexible, as they aren't used only over the lowered 6 as predominant), it has the _sound_ of an augmented sixth. That realisation kinda blew my mind.
Hey Fernie-thanks so much for this great comment! It's always gratifying for me when the channel prompts people to *listen differently* or even take renewed interest in their own listening experiences. The timing was uncanny as well. About a half-hour after I got your message, I was watching a TV show (Amazon's "The Boys," S3E1) which included the 1930s song "Dream a Little Dream." And wouldn't you know, the song's final cadence leapt out at me: Eb7, D7, G. I've thought about this on an off over the years: not whether the "bVI7" there "is" an augmented sixth, but whether I should try to HEAR it as one. The tritone-sub argument is curious, because while the progression turns up in music that regularly includes V7 of V (Tin Pan Alley tunes, for instance), it also turns up in genres that DON'T generally use V7 of V, and thus where the "tritone sub" explanation is less persuasive. (I'm thinking, e.g., of "Lucky" from Radiohead's "OK Computer.") At any rate, lots to ponder!
Great video. The jazz side of me is just interpreting these chords as: It+ = bVI Dominant Shell chord. Ge+ = bVI Dominant. Fr+ = bVI 7b5. Inversion or not, that's how they function. I'm thinking of it as the approach to the V7 in the last 4 bars of the minor blues. Parallel 5th's ftw. LOL
I notice a slight correlation between the nationality of the composer and the most common augmented sixth chord in their works. So I notice more Italian augmented sixths in works of Italian composers or composers who often wrote in an Italian style(Mendelssohn for example), more French augmented sixths in works of French composers(Debussy and Liszt(one French by birth, the other French by being in France for a lot of his life)) and of course, more German augmented sixths in works of German and by extent Austrian composers(Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert). I’m not saying that for example German composers don’t use the French augmented sixth chord, because Schubert is known to do exactly that, I’m just saying that if the composer is German, it is very likely that the most common augmented sixth chord will be the German augmented sixth and same goes for French and Italian composers and chords.
To be honest, in major I prefer to spell the lowered third in the German Aug6 as an raised second because it is the correct spelling in terms of voice leading. Yes, I know technically it reasolves delayed to the 5th of the dominant, so downwards, but because it reaches the major third first, it is not an held/sustained note und therefore it moves. Of course, if I resolve it directly as it is known from Mozart, then I will write it as a minor third.
Fascinating as always, thank you Seth! Were Aug 6 chords used much by Baroque or Romantic composers? To me they seem to have a really characteristic "Classical" sound. Thanks again!
Thanks, Tom! They definitely do turn up in the stylistic periods on either side of the classical era. But they tend to stand out less in Romantic music, given the generally higher level of chromatic saturation. (And they get used in all kinds of weird new ways-e.g., in inversions, with dominant rather than predominant functions, etc.) And in the Baroque era, I think they stand out less because they're used more casually and less as ear-grabbing rhetorical devices. I didn't talk about this in the video, but the classical composers were SO consistent about placing these things before cadential dominants, they end up having a signaling function in that style-"cadence coming up!"-that makes them really stand out, for me at least.
The famous Tristan Chord from Wagner is usually analysed as French +6 chord with chromatic appoggiatura to the tonic. So that is a way that Romantic composers use those chords...
I hear more of a vii dim7 quality to that predominant Tammy mentions in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony than anything else. Just by ear, it sounds diminished.
I still haven’t decided if Beethoven’s spelling of the F flat as an E natural in the Appassionata is funny or pathetic. He was adamant his genius superseded dumb rules, but here he seems suddenly sheepish about it, and behaves like many students (including my ex-self) hoping the theory teacher won’t see the mistake they’re trying to hide. Who cares anyway : that movement is one of his most beautiful works.
Must we choose between "funny" and "pathetic"-isn't it kind of both? I'm intrigued, though, by Beethoven's ambivalence here. On the one hand, he knew Mozart's music well enough to have seen the latter slam down shameless parallel fifths in Ger6 resolutions. On the other hand, he's a guy so uptight about voice-leading rules that he bit a student on the shoulder once (!?!?!?) over a partwriting error. Complicated guy, it seems...
@@SethMonahan Someone pointed out to Beethoven that there were parallel fifths in the Opus 18, No. 4 String Quartet. Beethoven said something to the effect that he makes the rules. Near the end of the fugue from Beethoven's Opus 131 Quartet in C-sharp min there is an aug-6th chord built on the lowered 2nd (Neapolitan) and in 3rd inversion (B-sharp in the base). It resolves to the tonic major chord.
@@TheGloryofMusic Well, we know Beethoven studied Mozart's music fastidiously, and the latter used parallels P5s at Ger6s often enough that they've been known as "Mozart fifths" at various points in time. So it's no wonder they'd turn up in LvB as well. As for the op. 131 chord: I'm grateful to be able to add that to my collection of Aug6s (or in this case, "diminished third" chords) that resolve to tonic. I've seen the one built on lowered ^2 many times but never with the leading tone in the bass. What's curious is that, from what I can tell, composers tend to use that "b2" augmented sixth almost exclusively at or near the ends of entire pieces. I've got examples from Schubert, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, and Fauré, and they all proceed directly to the LAST tonic triad of the work (just like in op. 131). Seems like a sound that they want to reserve for special occasions?
@@SethMonahan This aug-6th chord near the end of the Opus 131 fugue is very significant. In the exposition the fugal answers are in the subdominant, so the sforzando falls on D. The central section is in A maj, the relative major of F-sharp min. All of which means that there is a strong subdominant flavor to the movement, and which also colors the finale (repeated references to the Neapolitan). So the resolution to the C-sharp maj chord can be seen as a resolution to V of IV; and indeed, one analyst has remarked that the fugue is more "on" C-sharp min than "in" C-sharp min.
Root-position minor v is so rare in this style as to be virtually nonexistent. I've certainly never come across the progression you're describing. However, if you take that progression and move it to new scale degrees, so that the augmented sixth is (1) built above flattened scale degree ^2 and (2) resolves to a root-position minor TONIC, you get a progression that does occasionally turn up. It actually appears at the end of the next video (no. 36), in some Sicilian folk music.
I am confused about one thing. The Hayden trio in Gminor, you have it labeled as movement IV but as far as I can tell it only has three movements? Is this a typo or am I out to lunch?
That's so funny: it is definitely the third movement. But the recording I used is titled in Spotify as having movements "I," "III," and "IV." I was on auto-pilot and didn't even notice. (You may know that Haydn's piano trios pretty much NEVER have a fourth movement!)
Thank you so much for your great journey on the augmented 6th. It's been a pleasure to listen to you all your info and examples! You're very talented as teacher! Keep going doing those great lessons!
Great lesson with really nice musical illustrations. Stellar work once gain. Your students are lucky, Professor, but so are we. Thank you so much.
Thanks so much, Pat!
Such a tangy episode... Love it!
I've been waiting for this one. My teacher loves augmented 6th chords, so I've always wanted to be able to understand what he's talking about. Thanks so much
This vid is absolutely superb, as always. Please keep them coming!
A whole new world for me to explore! 😊
All it really is is a tritone sub of V7/V if you really think about it. Especially the german one. Its spelled really weirdly though im guessing because composers didnt have a name for it back then and didnt know what it was
It's 100% true that augmented sixth chords sound similar (or identical) to what modern musicians would call "a tritone sub of V7/V." And if that's a helpful way to think about them, go for it.
But the "all it really is" angle is rather too ahistorical. (1) There's very little compositional evidence that composers in this style understood the principle of tritone substitution before 1875 or so, where it starts turning up in Brahms, Debussy, et al.; (2) if composers 300 years ago were "really" just using a tritone sub for V7/V, why didn't they use tritone subs for other dominants?**; (3) the spelling makes complete sense from the perspective of voice leading, which is how 18th/19th-century composers would have understood it (i.e., it would make no sense to a composer in 1830 to spell a chord in C minor [Ab-C-Eb-Gb] and then resolve the Gb UPWARD to G; chromatic accidentals indicate directionality); (4) thinking of aug6 chords has having a root on b6 masks the critical relationship they have to iv6, which is the chord that behaves most similarly in this style.
** There are scattered cases in the early 19th century of aug6 chords built above b2, which can sound like the tritone sub for the regular V7. But the fact that those chords are always spelled *as aug6 chords* and not as dominants suggests that composers didn't think of them as "dominant sevenths," let alone "dominants that substitute for other dominants."
@@SethMonahan you're absolutely correct on every single point. I guess I wasnt viewing both as those from 2 different systems and applying it to only 1 system. As I mentioned, I don't think the composers viewed it as a "tritone sub". But I do think the composers "understood" the sound they were making obviously in a intuitive sense.
I should have thought more about my comment.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply!
@@DeadpoolPlayz No worries! I realize now that I omitted something important: when harmonic thinking became more explicitly chordal in the 19th century, theorists struggled mightily with how to understand aug6 chords, because they believed that all chords must have roots. The problem is that, based on spelling, each of the three aug6 chords has a *different* root! But-and this relates to your point-it was common to think of the French aug6 as an alteration of V7/V-i.e., like a second-inversion V7/V with a flattened chordal fifth. That's not the same thing as thinking of them as "substitutes," but there IS a theoretical traditional of correlating one of the aug6 chords to V7/V!
@@SethMonahan very awesome
Thank you so much for the enlightenment video of visual and sound. It does demystify the "Augmented Chords", excellent work!!
This channel has really help be consolidate some vague ideas that I've had about harmony and pitch relationships through the last few years. Lesson 18, with its brilliant demonstration of the importance of context when "unscrambling" words has reinforced this belief I have that, for example, enharmonic intervals just *sound* different because of the musical context they're in. A more beginner student might say it's "stupid" to call that chord an "augmented 6th", because "an augmented 6th is the same as a minor 7th!", but the harmonic context _clearly_ shows that an augmented sixth just has a _peculiar_ sound to it. It's not a minor 7th.
And then, I watched this video, and this tied perfectly to a song I had been thinking about earlier today. The song "Asa", by Brazilian songwriter Djavan, has a guitar groove based on the chords Dm7 - Bb7 - A7(b13). I realise that, in the pop/jazz idiom, the Bb7 is more commonly called a "tritone sub", and it might be pedantic to use terminology that's specific to common practice period music and apply it to popular music. However, the way Djavan's bass line moves from Bb to Ab in that Bb7 chord just happens to have _exactly_ that "tangy" sound you mention in that video. It never sounded to me like a "regular" minor 7th. And that's when I realised: that chord really is an augmented 6th chord. Even though it's far more customary to call it a tritone sub (and tritone subs are more flexible, as they aren't used only over the lowered 6 as predominant), it has the _sound_ of an augmented sixth. That realisation kinda blew my mind.
Hey Fernie-thanks so much for this great comment! It's always gratifying for me when the channel prompts people to *listen differently* or even take renewed interest in their own listening experiences. The timing was uncanny as well. About a half-hour after I got your message, I was watching a TV show (Amazon's "The Boys," S3E1) which included the 1930s song "Dream a Little Dream." And wouldn't you know, the song's final cadence leapt out at me: Eb7, D7, G. I've thought about this on an off over the years: not whether the "bVI7" there "is" an augmented sixth, but whether I should try to HEAR it as one. The tritone-sub argument is curious, because while the progression turns up in music that regularly includes V7 of V (Tin Pan Alley tunes, for instance), it also turns up in genres that DON'T generally use V7 of V, and thus where the "tritone sub" explanation is less persuasive. (I'm thinking, e.g., of "Lucky" from Radiohead's "OK Computer.") At any rate, lots to ponder!
Great video. The jazz side of me is just interpreting these chords as: It+ = bVI Dominant Shell chord. Ge+ = bVI Dominant. Fr+ = bVI 7b5. Inversion or not, that's how they function. I'm thinking of it as the approach to the V7 in the last 4 bars of the minor blues. Parallel 5th's ftw. LOL
I notice a slight correlation between the nationality of the composer and the most common augmented sixth chord in their works. So I notice more Italian augmented sixths in works of Italian composers or composers who often wrote in an Italian style(Mendelssohn for example), more French augmented sixths in works of French composers(Debussy and Liszt(one French by birth, the other French by being in France for a lot of his life)) and of course, more German augmented sixths in works of German and by extent Austrian composers(Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert).
I’m not saying that for example German composers don’t use the French augmented sixth chord, because Schubert is known to do exactly that, I’m just saying that if the composer is German, it is very likely that the most common augmented sixth chord will be the German augmented sixth and same goes for French and Italian composers and chords.
To be honest, in major I prefer to spell the lowered third in the German Aug6 as an raised second because it is the correct spelling in terms of voice leading. Yes, I know technically it reasolves delayed to the 5th of the dominant, so downwards, but because it reaches the major third first, it is not an held/sustained note und therefore it moves. Of course, if I resolve it directly as it is known from Mozart, then I will write it as a minor third.
Fascinating as always, thank you Seth! Were Aug 6 chords used much by Baroque or Romantic composers? To me they seem to have a really characteristic "Classical" sound. Thanks again!
Thanks, Tom! They definitely do turn up in the stylistic periods on either side of the classical era. But they tend to stand out less in Romantic music, given the generally higher level of chromatic saturation. (And they get used in all kinds of weird new ways-e.g., in inversions, with dominant rather than predominant functions, etc.) And in the Baroque era, I think they stand out less because they're used more casually and less as ear-grabbing rhetorical devices. I didn't talk about this in the video, but the classical composers were SO consistent about placing these things before cadential dominants, they end up having a signaling function in that style-"cadence coming up!"-that makes them really stand out, for me at least.
The famous Tristan Chord from Wagner is usually analysed as French +6 chord with chromatic appoggiatura to the tonic. So that is a way that Romantic composers use those chords...
I hear more of a vii dim7 quality to that predominant Tammy mentions in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony than anything else. Just by ear, it sounds diminished.
Cause of the tritone im guessing
I learned this in my degree but needed a recap of many things
I guess a worthy mention of an "inverted" aug6th chord would be the end of Chopin's famous e minor prelude, even though it's spelled "wrong".
I wish u making video about creating melodies ❤
I still haven’t decided if Beethoven’s spelling of the F flat as an E natural in the Appassionata is funny or pathetic. He was adamant his genius superseded dumb rules, but here he seems suddenly sheepish about it, and behaves like many students (including my ex-self) hoping the theory teacher won’t see the mistake they’re trying to hide. Who cares anyway : that movement is one of his most beautiful works.
Must we choose between "funny" and "pathetic"-isn't it kind of both? I'm intrigued, though, by Beethoven's ambivalence here. On the one hand, he knew Mozart's music well enough to have seen the latter slam down shameless parallel fifths in Ger6 resolutions. On the other hand, he's a guy so uptight about voice-leading rules that he bit a student on the shoulder once (!?!?!?) over a partwriting error. Complicated guy, it seems...
@@SethMonahan Someone pointed out to Beethoven that there were parallel fifths in the Opus 18, No. 4 String Quartet. Beethoven said something to the effect that he makes the rules. Near the end of the fugue from Beethoven's Opus 131 Quartet in C-sharp min there is an aug-6th chord built on the lowered 2nd (Neapolitan) and in 3rd inversion (B-sharp in the base). It resolves to the tonic major chord.
@@TheGloryofMusic Well, we know Beethoven studied Mozart's music fastidiously, and the latter used parallels P5s at Ger6s often enough that they've been known as "Mozart fifths" at various points in time. So it's no wonder they'd turn up in LvB as well.
As for the op. 131 chord: I'm grateful to be able to add that to my collection of Aug6s (or in this case, "diminished third" chords) that resolve to tonic. I've seen the one built on lowered ^2 many times but never with the leading tone in the bass. What's curious is that, from what I can tell, composers tend to use that "b2" augmented sixth almost exclusively at or near the ends of entire pieces. I've got examples from Schubert, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, and Fauré, and they all proceed directly to the LAST tonic triad of the work (just like in op. 131). Seems like a sound that they want to reserve for special occasions?
@@SethMonahan This aug-6th chord near the end of the Opus 131 fugue is very significant. In the exposition the fugal answers are in the subdominant, so the sforzando falls on D. The central section is in A maj, the relative major of F-sharp min. All of which means that there is a strong subdominant flavor to the movement, and which also colors the finale (repeated references to the Neapolitan). So the resolution to the C-sharp maj chord can be seen as a resolution to V of IV; and indeed, one analyst has remarked that the fugue is more "on" C-sharp min than "in" C-sharp min.
Is there a way Augmented 6ths could be used to go to v (G, b, D) instead of V (G, H, D)?
Root-position minor v is so rare in this style as to be virtually nonexistent. I've certainly never come across the progression you're describing. However, if you take that progression and move it to new scale degrees, so that the augmented sixth is (1) built above flattened scale degree ^2 and (2) resolves to a root-position minor TONIC, you get a progression that does occasionally turn up. It actually appears at the end of the next video (no. 36), in some Sicilian folk music.
First class 👍👍
Awesome!
I am confused about one thing. The Hayden trio in Gminor, you have it labeled as movement IV but as far as I can tell it only has three movements? Is this a typo or am I out to lunch?
That's so funny: it is definitely the third movement. But the recording I used is titled in Spotify as having movements "I," "III," and "IV." I was on auto-pilot and didn't even notice. (You may know that Haydn's piano trios pretty much NEVER have a fourth movement!)
@@SethMonahan I actually did not know that specifically. I just like to track down the full pieces from most of your examples and was like "heeeeeey!"