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    What Is Chromatic Music?: Secondary Dominant Chords Are Chords Built On The Dominant of The Dominant Key. Now, Your

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    pixol9339
    Chromatic music uses all musical notes rather than those belonging to a particular key, giving it an unsettled quality. It was once seen as symbolizing insanity. Chromatic scales ascend or descend through all notes, sharp or flat. Chromatic harmony incorporates notes outside the key, including secondary dominant chords built on the dominant of another key, diminished 7th chords with minor thirds, and tricky Neapolitan 6th chords in first inversion built on the lowered second scale degree.

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    What Is Chromatic Music?: Secondary Dominant Chords Are Chords Built On The Dominant of The Dominant Key. Now, Your

    Uploaded by

    pixol9339
    21 views2 pages
    Chromatic music uses all musical notes rather than those belonging to a particular key, giving it an unsettled quality. It was once seen as symbolizing insanity. Chromatic scales ascend or descend through all notes, sharp or flat. Chromatic harmony incorporates notes outside the key, including secondary dominant chords built on the dominant of another key, diminished 7th chords with minor thirds, and tricky Neapolitan 6th chords in first inversion built on the lowered second scale degree.

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    chromatic band's music

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    Chromatic music uses all musical notes rather than those belonging to a particular key, giving it an unsettled quality. It was once seen as symbolizing insanity. Chromatic scales ascend or descend through all notes, sharp or flat. Chromatic harmony incorporates notes outside the key, including secondary dominant chords built on the dominant of another key, diminished 7th chords with minor thirds, and tricky Neapolitan 6th chords in first inversion built on the lowered second scale degree.

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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    21 views2 pages

    What Is Chromatic Music?: Secondary Dominant Chords Are Chords Built On The Dominant of The Dominant Key. Now, Your

    Uploaded by

    pixol9339
    Chromatic music uses all musical notes rather than those belonging to a particular key, giving it an unsettled quality. It was once seen as symbolizing insanity. Chromatic scales ascend or descend through all notes, sharp or flat. Chromatic harmony incorporates notes outside the key, including secondary dominant chords built on the dominant of another key, diminished 7th chords with minor thirds, and tricky Neapolitan 6th chords in first inversion built on the lowered second scale degree.

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    of 2

    This lesson examines the history and theory behind chromatic music, which was once a symbol

    of insanity in the musical arts. Take a look at chromatic scales and harmony, and learn about the
    tricky Neapolitan 6th chord.

    What Is Chromatic Music?


    One can easily make the joke that chromatic music once symbolized insanity in music. The
    reason for this is that chromatic music lacks a tonal center and the chromatic scale includes
    every single note. The sensation of listening to a downward chromatic scale feels like falling in
    out-of-control spiral, while an upward chromatic scale sounds like a runaway train.
    In Western music, a chromatic note is a note that does not exist in the given key. A key is a
    collection of pitches that relate to a specific home tone. For example, in the key of C major, the
    notes are: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. Any note that has been modified by an accidental, either sharp
    or flat, is considered a chromatic note.

    Chromatic Scales
    Put simply, the chromatic scale is a musical scale that uses all the musical pitches. For example,
    if you were to start the chromatic scale on a C, the scale would read as: C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#,
    G, G#, A, A#, B, C… and so on. In case you were wondering, the # after a letter means the pitch
    is sharp, meaning raised a half step. Descending, this would look like: C, B, Bb, A, Ab, G, Gb, F,
    E, Eb, D, Db, C… and so on; the b after a letter means the note is flat, lowered a half step. It is
    common practice to use sharps going up and flats going down, but there is no hard and fast rule
    about this.

    Chromatic Harmony
    Chromatic harmony can get tricky. The simple definition is that a chromatic harmony is chords
    that build on or include notes that aren't part of the key. Let's start with the secondary dominant
    chords, as those are the easiest to understand.
    Secondary dominant chords are chords built on the dominant of the dominant key. Now, your
    eyes may have just glazed over, but let's take a closer look at what this means. The dominant is
    the 5th note in the scale.
    We're going to stick with our C major example because it's the easiest to work with. The
    dominant of C is G. The dominant of G is D. So, the secondary dominant of C is D. Next, we
    build a 7th chord on this note. A 7th chord is a major chord with a lowered 7th above the bottom
    note. The 7th chord on D is D, F#, A, C. That makes this a chromatic chord because the F# is not
    present in the original key of C major.
    The next set of chromatic chords is the diminished 7th chord. A diminished chord is made up of
    all minor thirds, and the added 7th is a non-scale tone. In the key of C major, the commonly
    occurring diminished 7th is B, D, F, Ab, where the Ab is the non-scale tone; B, D, and F are
    naturally occurring.

    Neapolitan & Augmented 6th Chords


    The next two types of chords are where it can get a bit tricky. First, the Neapolitan 6th chord is
    a chord in first inversion built on the lowered second scale degree. What does that mean? First,
    let's build the chord.
    Starting in the key of C again, the second scale degree is D. Now we need to lower it, so we
    have Db. Next, we build a major chord, so Db, F, Ab. Finally, an inversion means to rearrange
    the notes, placing the note on the bottom on top (first inversion), or the top note on bottom
    (second inversion). That would make our Neapolitan 6 chord F, Ab, Db, with the Ab and Db being
    the chromatic notes of the chord.

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