Oddly enough, the French sixth chord is the same as a V7b5/V. For example, the French sixth chord in C minor is the same as a D7b5 chord, but in second inversion.
A lot of music theory texts and material are super gatekeepy. Your explanation of the secondary dominants cleared up almost 20 years of mystery for me.
You're so well spoken and the video is put together very well! It's been ten years since I learned this and now I have to teach it. Thanks for re-teaching me!
This was SO neat to hear you mention the pull from 5 to 1. One day I was following an observation I made on MANY pop music melodies, and I realized, so many of the Beatles songs that are so catchy ? And many others? START on 5 and resolve to 1. The 5th in my mind is tne nearest relative to the octave in that, the octave is 1 to 2, the fifth is 1 to 3. So, while I no longer play 'songs' when I do just 'play', I so often give a LOT of weight, or maybe I should say gravity to the 5th. So neat though to hear you mention that gravitational pull to 1 from 5 though. Thanks so much for making these videos.
Jesse - it's good to have a sense of humor. But even better to ignore those who don't :) Consequently, as we used to say in the old (hippie) days: Keep on Truckin!
Thinking about going to grad school, and of all the skills I've used out in the professional world, I've even heard the phrase "augmented sixth chord" so rarely that I forgot how to use them. This video explained it perfectly, without dumbing it down too much to where it got slow, and completely cleared out all the cobwebs. Thanks!
Thank you very much. I have been struggling to grasp the rules behind this so I can understand why. You cleared that up more than anyone I have asked or watched. I appreciate your clarity and way of explaining. The Aug6 wants to resolve outward and the D7 wants to resolve inward helped. Though they have the enharmonic equivalent notes they are are leading to different resolutions (different keys).
Listen to the end of the second movement of Bach's First Brandenburg Concerto. Bach writes a "German" 6th chord, but gets out of the parallel 5th problem by first resolving it onto a "French" 6th.
I believe I'm a noob when it comes to music theory but this video was so well detailed and explaining, this will help me imitate and understand an overwhelming majority of music I usually listen to. Thank you!
This video was 7 minutes and 12 seconds long. It says so right on the player. Why is it called 2 minute music theory if the video is 5 minutes and 12 seconds long. This is why we can’t have nice things.
william cloninger yeah it threw me off because at first I thought it was two minutes long and half way thru the video I was confused because it felt way longer than 2 minutes. I checked and saw it was 7:12 long and I was like oh okay.
man, I'm not gonna lie, I really never thought that Bambi steak would be what gets me through my music theory midterm this Friday. Thank you so much for the easy explanation!
Vegan here; Do Fi Le flew right over my head so I didn't have enough time to get upset. Anyway thanks for video! I just learned about an Augmented italian chord from my friend today. So sick. I really like the sound of the 1 - 6- 4 progression you shared.
I am writing a scherzo and one thing that I have been told to do is to make the audience expect something but then thwart those expectations by for example cadence evasion. 1 thing that immediately came to mind is deceptive resolution, in other words resolving the dominant to the relative minor. I have also been told that I can use that same C7 to go to Db major(a case of tritone substitution, which I don't think is used all that much in classical music but is used a lot in jazz) or that I can spell C7 as an augmented 6th to go to C major or G major instead of F major. What augmented 6ths could I have as a respelling of C7 besides the German sixth?
Only the German sixth has the exact spelling of a dominant 7 chord. However, the other augmented sixths can be used creatively there too. Many composers have used these chords to modulate. Honestly, we really don't have to follow the same rules though in modern compositions - so a tritone substitution is perfectly acceptable in modern "classical" music. It may however, be out of character for the piece (I haven't seen it), so that may not be the best fit. Depending on voice leading (I'm assuming you're in F major based on information provided), you could go from C7 (V7) to a French 6, which would be very similar in function to a Db major, and then resolve the augmented 6 back out to a C, and use that as your cadence into C major. You could also possibly come out of the IV (Bb major) into a Italian or French 6 built on C (C, F#, Ab, D), and then use that to cadence into C major. Of course, I've only given examples on how to modulate to the dominant, and that can be cliche. So, my advice is a) figure out what key you want to end up in, b) look at the voice leading of the chords preceding it, and c) remember that the augmented 6 resolves out to an octave, and let that guide your decisions.
@ Yes, in fact my teacher call to this three chords like the phrigian dominant because of that you mean. That half-tone of the phrigian mode. :D PD: Sorry for my bad english
Hi Jesse. I have been trying to add this great clip to a playlist on my channel called music theory. It rarely gets views from anyone other than me. I like to keep useful clips I have learnt from handy to refresh my memory or send of the clip to a friend. For some odd reason I can't add this clip. I have never had this problem before. I have searched for an answer to no avail. I was wondering if it is a setting on your channel. If it is and you don't want this clip added to playlists I completely understand. If this is the case can you please let me know so I can stop trying to sort it out? Regards, Amanda
"There's a french, a german, and an italian, which sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but it's not." My guy, it sounds like the beginning of a GREAT joke, or maybe I have low standards
shouldn't the French be considered more devilish than the German no matter Wagner?! or perhaps they really don't since even with two tritones they notheless came back to the tonic...
William Montgomery okay so the Bambi joke is Doe Filet would be a steak made from deer. Do Fi Le is the spelling of the Italian 6 chord. Punny beyond all reason.
"Common practice" already implies "Common practice Western", because only Western music is segmented this way (other traditions have different historical periods). It's also a shortcut way of saying "Renaissance and earlier music might work differently" (since they still had the old European modes) and "Jazz and Rock and later music might work differently" (since they have a somewhat different way of analyzing chords) and "atonal music works differently".
This explanation is way too complicated. The Augmented sixth chords are simply a chromatic alternation of the iv6 in minor going to V. In between them lies the Augmented sixth chord. You simply sharp the fourth degree of the scale. It's easy. It goes like this iv6: b6 - 1 - 4 to Aug. +6: b6 - 1 - #4 to V: 5 - 7- 5. The interval in the chord of b6 to #4 is the augmented sixth. These chords are prevalent in the minor mode because iv6 already has a flat sixth scale degree in it.
