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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.
***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?)
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 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'!)
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
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'