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common tone chords

What are 'common tone' chords?

***They are sonorities that act as decoration, or embellishment,

in 'non-chord' situations such as neighbour notes or appoggiaturas,

but which

LOOK and SOUND

like other familiar chords such as viio7s or x6ths.

***They are connected to their 'real' chords by common tones.

common-tone o7s

***To walk through this basic information,

go to the

'common tone chord basics' file in

Blackboard: Course Materials/Prezi files by topic

Actually 'Stick' horse, not 'Rocking' horse

Listen for the cross rhythm

- imagine the cto7 beat without its accent

and the downbeat coming on the first note of each bar:

the result is a bar of 6/8 in a syncopated hemiola

with the strong 3/4 of the inner left hand voices.

And visualize the body movement: the head and feet

are moving in different rhythms, so this cross rhythm

is done with a very specific purpose!

green lines = voice exchanges

! Amazing idea! By deciding to tonicize D minor (ii) and make it the climax of the piece,

Schumann has copied the NEIGHBOUR function of the cto7 chord motive (G-A-G in m.1 and overall E-F-E)

and designed the whole piece as I-ii-I (C-d-C)!

x6 returns

home to C

(opening has incomplete cto7 - can you hear which note is missing? RNA: C major I-cto7-I-cto7-I)

(then comes an x6 forcing the bass C down to which note?)

common-tone x6ths

c.t.x6 (over tonic pedal)

Looks and sounds like V7 of G, but doesn't resolve to G. Instead, it returns to the C chord, acting as 3 neighbour moves (G-F#-G, implied G-A-G, E-D-E)

'Tonight' from West Side Story - Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondhiem

Listen for the 'neighbour' V7s: imagine a C major chord, then V4/2 of V, then back to C major tonic (the V4/2 of V should resolve to V6!)

Liszt: Les Preludes

common-tone V7s

common-tone o7s

Common tone is C (tonic) - the most often-found situation;

3 neighbour notes (F#-D#-A) create a o7 sonority that is

NOT a 'o7 of this or that' but simply a neighbour chord:

LABELLING it something (D#-F#-A-C = perhaps a o7 of iii?)

MAKES NO SENSE here, so describe it according to its most

significant feature: the 'pedal note' - the common tone, so

call it 'cto7'. (btw never name it with any other figured bass, e.g. 6/5, 4/3 or 4/2, because it has no 'root'!)

etc.

c.t.o7

(triple neighbours over tonic pedal: E-Fx-A#-C#)

Spelling is important! The D# and A# can't be spelled as Eb and Db - they're neighbours, and so need a

letter name to reflect that.

Notice in both tonic chords that a logical doubling

is the 5th of the chord: that allows for all 3

neighbours to move there and back by step.

common tone to both the o7 chord and the tonic

Flowerdale - Philip Sparke

(Neighbour 6/4)

Any o7 can become the pivot chord

in a modulation, so a cto7 can as well.

Here, that cto7 acting as a N to V7

is also o7 of B minor.

Second most common situation:

same formation, but embellishing

the dominant chord.

c.t.o7

(triple neighbours over dominant pedal: B-Cx-E#-G#)

Any major triad will work, though I and V are by far the most often found: here is a IV with a neighbour cto7.

V13 i

C: cto7

b: viio4/2

Even more common

than the plain V

is V7 - because then

ALL THREE voices

can be used as 'N'

(and to avoid the

weaker doubled 5th)

delicious dissonance when the melodic skip is filled in!

APP

V resolves to bIII!

+7th

cto7

IV

3rd skip in the melody results

when the 5th isn't doubled

Also common is this voice leading; notice that the

||5ths are not wrong, because one is diminished.

'Tiny Tim' created a performing career almost exclusively by crooning this old song

Schumann: Kinderszenen ('Scenes from Childhood') #9

Eb here makes more sense than D#

- it's passing DOWN to D.

Question: with this new

spelling do we now call it a viio7/V

(i.e. F#-A-C-Eb = viio7 of G)?

Answer: yes and no.

It's still perceived as a passing chord,

though the 5th relationship is

also very obvious to the ear.

Tiptoe through the Tulips - Joe Burke 1929

Yellow Bird

P

cto7s work best with major triads,

and thus they are found most often

in MAJOR keys. In a minor tonic

situation, only 2 neighbour notes

are available - here both the tonic

(C) and the Eb remain during the o7, and

the Ab in the C minor scale has to be

rewritten as A natural to complete the o7.

cto7

The extended resolution

via the C-B suspension

makes the initial V4/3

sound like an 'upper 5th' to the V7,

almost as if it were a ii7 moving to V.

notice the subtle enharmonic twinning

of B# and C natural - watch for it!

E melody note in m.4 returns here to

get ready for climactic move to F in m.13

(G bass = pedal, maybe to represent the stationary earth)

Surprise! If the A natural

is omitted and A flat is

allowed to stay, a whole

new world opens up! Now

the neighbour chord is a

common-tone German x6th!

c.t.o7

(E#-G#-B-Cx/common tone = B, linked to V4/3)

c.t.o7

(Fx-A#-C#-E; common tone = E, linked to I6)

(passing)

o7 of ii

x6 used for a

dramatic expansion

(chromatic voice exchange)

6

4

cto7s work very well

with inversions of V7 too...

ii7

(half-diminished)

augmented triad: E-G#-B#= I#5,

pushing the I6 more strongly to IV

because it's heard as V#5 of IV (A major)

D minor i-iio6-cad.6/4-V7-i

4

2

cto7

V/ii

Start with a cto7:

ii6/5 (half-diminished)

used as substitute for plagal extension I-iv-I

In the recording the 4 notes of the o7 don't sound together,

but the missing notes are supplied in the accompanying voices

dominant pedal expands V with V/ii - ii

Link the added 6th chord to V4/3 via a passing note in the melody

Mahler: Symphony #1, 1st movement

Schubert: Quintet D956 in C major 1st movement opening

Tchaikovsky: The Organ-Grinder, from 'Album for the Young'

Change I to I+6 (added 6th)

notice the Eb, not the usual D#

Antecedent

Consequent

I

c.t.o7

I

?

(E# would make more sense as appoggiatura to F#)

TWO common tones

(D minor - ii in C+)

V

V7

c.t.o7

score starts here

x triad initiates rising chromatic line to

x6 finally gets C to move to

VII (major)

V7

c.t.o7

VII resolves directly to V

Saint-Saens: The Swan

Beethoven: 'Eroica' Variations op.35 - variation #3

Schubert: Erlkonig

ii4/2 (see Beethoven op14 #2, Bach WTC Prelude #1)

but doesn't resolve down to V6/5; tonic pedal remains.

c.t.o7

(c.t.o7?)

I

V7

V

A# pushes bass off G

SMOOTH almost stationary -

after all, we're talking swan-smooth...

(if the o7 returns to I6 it would be A#)

from song cycle 'Schwanengesang'

Liszt: Freudvoll und leidvoll

notice the spelling - D# not Eb

(even though the sonority is 'German':

D# rises to E, making more sense than Eb)

c.t.x6

(as appoggiatura)

*

Mosolov: The Iron Foundry (1928)

*

the pedal C suggests

the eternal, unchanging

nature of the sea:

human drama is only surface detail

*

= Augmented triads.

Notice how their nebulous sound

complements the ambiguity

inherent in the textual content:

'full of joy and full of pain'

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