Overanalyzing three chords (bVII, v/V, IVsus4/6... you decide!)

[ichijou]

So I've got three triads: (X), G, C.

They are played in that order with an ascending leading tone(A#-B-C).

(X) has three notes: A# D F.

My first thought is that (X) is bVII, however in looking it up the bVII seems to not resolve to the V.

My second thought is that (X) is D alt #5, making it v/V, however looking that up i see that dominate chords can't really be minor.

To me it sounds like an ascending v-i cadence repeated twice over, so my thought was how to logically get from (X) to G to C that way, short of something that looks like V/V/V/V/V/V.../V-V-I.

I fear I am overanalyzing this however and it's just that (X) is simply a passing/borrowed chord and that my ears are just deficient towards cadant(is that the right suffix?) reception.

[Musicologo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%99%AD ... V7_cadence

[ichijou]

dang it, out of all the things i googled that was not one of them, thanks.

search.jpg

[jancivil]

So I've got three triads: (X), G, C.

They are played in that order with an ascending leading tone(A#-B-C).

(X) has three notes: A# D F.

My first thought is that (X) is bVII, however in looking it up the bVII seems to not resolve to the V.

Bb D F.

if this is in C, for instance, the seventh degree of a C scale is a B. C D E F G A B. A# is a sixth degree.
A# D F makes no sense as a triad. A# to D is a diminished fourth.

You really need the basics quite before you try to to sort something like this.

'bVII' has no particular need to 'resolve' to a V. The V, if dominant, in common practice paradigm or western 'classical' paradigm may be seen as wanting to resolve to I, or deceptively/incompletely to eg., vi or VI.
Harmonic movement is not to be boiled down to a series of resolutions, note well.

Also, lower case v/, ie., minor '5' chord secondary to another harmony, is odd; as you wonder about that long series, V/V/...
<V of> is a secondary dominant. I think you have googled that and found something, so I don't know what's up with the lower case 'v' there. "v of _", not so meaningful. Let's say we have an F minor; v of _, no. It's iv, borrowed from parallel minor.

OTOH: If we have Bb, F, C, we could say that it's a 'double plagal' move, where Bb is IV/IV. That's tangential to the normative use* of the slash as we have it, however.


Further: "D alt #5"; confer Occam's Razor, the fewer assumptions needed to make something work the better.
Bb D F is a triad. You're done. Even if seen as D F Bb, it's Bb major, first inversion.

Googling out of this quality of assumption is not a cogent way to move forward here. It looks to me like you have done a bit of this, to come away with shite like 'D alt #5', haphazardly collected bits of information that don't quite add up. There is a coherent course out there somewhere, I assure you.

(One fallacy that crops up typically in this mode of operation is that one takes up a belief that everything in the world is going to fit some terms, such as here. There is no pressing need to explain Bb G C in CPP terms.
If you had to for some reason, Bb is simply borrowed from C minor. OR our passage is simply in C minor with a major V. The scalar Bb B C is not CPP type, though.
Bb "resolving to" G; G is apparently not the tonic chord or the like, which is where 'resolution' has meaning.
SO: *It would be good to know those terms in context of where it applies, which would help one realize the difference.)

[Etienne1973]

I hear/feel the Bb (bVII) as kind of subdominant chord in this cadence bVII-V-I. As a variation of the common major IIm-V-I progression.

[ichijou]

yeah, i think Musicologo was on the money with the bVII-V cadence he linked, and heck anything that otis redding and link wray both used must be good, right?