help a newbie with neapolitan sixth

[offensive-teenager]

For some reason I became completely obsessed with this chord but I am somewhat incompetent and noobish with music theory.

I know that eh it has been used in classical music in romantic perioid and Chopin used it.

Also it usually functions as replacement for IV in IV-V-I cadenze?

But which notes actually belongs into that chord in C major? And how about A minor? Is there any difference if the minor scale is harmonic or natural?

I would like to use this chord on my composition that is in A natural minor, but I am not sure how to implement it?

Sorry for my bad spelling. I hope you got the idea!
Also I would really appreciate any help thanks!

[llatham]

I know that eh it has been used in classical music in romantic perioid and Chopin used it.

And Bach, and Haydn, and Mozart, and Schubert, etc. etc. It really is an important part of the Tonal Period "toolkit".

Also it usually functions as replacement for IV in IV-V-I cadenze?

It is a "pre-dominant" (also called Dominant Prep or Subdominant by many) function chord, which means it is usually found functioning like ii, IV, or as a replacement for either. Though sometimes, it is also used in conjunction with IV (or another pre-dominant chord) as an "enhancement" of the pre-dominant chordal area.

But which notes actually belongs into that chord in C major? And how about A minor? Is there any difference if the minor scale is harmonic or natural?

1. Neapolitan Sixth chords are *by far* more common in minor key works. They are a Major Triad, built on lowered scale degree (^ hereafter)2 (b2), in first inversion. Thus the scale degrees that make up the N6 are ^4, ^6*, and ^b2 of a minor scale.

*note, I'm using ^6 as it occurs naturally in minor keys, so if you use that system where everything is related to major, ^6 in minor is called "b6" by those users. In C major, ^6 is A, in C minor, ^6 is Ab. The newer convention is to call Ab in C minor, "b6".

2. Classical music uses *keys* not *scales* to build music. Our concept of natural, harmonic, and melodic minors are really mnemonic devices to show how minor key works vary ^6 and ^7 depending on harmonic or melodic necessity. Thus chords are not "built from" scales, they are built from the KEY, and some of them are altered for various reasons. N6 is built from the key, using ^4, ^6, and ^2, and uses the lowered ^2 (^b2) to create a "pull" to the Leading Tone.

In C minor, N6 would be F Ab Db (DbM in first inversion if you like).
In A minor, N6 would be D F Bb

They *can* (and do) appear in Major keys:

In C Major, N6 would be F Ab Db (see, no difference)
In A Major, N6 would be D Fn Bb (ditto)

I would like to use this chord on my composition that is in A natural minor, but I am not sure how to implement it?

In classical music, N6 goes to V (V7). The voice-leading is pretty specific:
In Am:

D - B
Bb - G#
F - E
D - E

The "goal" or ^b2 (Bb here) is the Leading Tone (G# here).

Many composers insert a passing tone, or a cadential six-four chord (I6/4) between the two to "smooth over" the ^b2 to ^#7 motion:

D - C - B
Bb -A - G#
F - E - E
D - E - E

This being the modern era, you could really use the chord in anyway you see fit. However, if you went to be "authentic", N6 is frequently found at the end of the passage, rather than nearer the beginning, after the tonality has been firmly established. It's also usually somewhat of a surprise (in that we haven't heard b2 yet). For example:

i - iv6/4 - i - V6/5 - i - N6 - V (or i6/4-V7, etc.) - i.

In Am:

Am - Dm/A - Am - E7/G# - Am - Bb/D - E (or Am/E - E7, etc.) - Am

N6 has also been used as a common chord in modulations, there are pieces that modulate to the key of b2, and there are even examples of Neapolitans with an added 7th, and even a minor N6 (n6).

HTH,
Steve

[herodotus]

Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata contains a Neapolitan sixth chord right at the very beginning (circled in red):

[nuffink]

You might notice the Neopolitan sixth's closeness to the substitute dominant (or tritone substitution) in jazz. Extend the major triad built on the b2 to a 7 and you have the main substitute dominant. This takes the place of the V7 chord, turning the classic jazz ii-7|V7|I to ii-7|bII7|I Jaaathers usually play it with the root in the bass as it gives a lovely chromatic descending bassline.
If you see it in a fake book assume it takes the Lydian Dominant unless you've got a better idea.

[someone called simon]

A nice modern (ie 'rock' idiom) usage is Radiohead's 'wolf at the door', off Hail to the Thief. the second chord* in the verse sequence. It sort of makes me wonder if they had been reading up on theory and wanted to try it out...

*or third if you count the little variation on the first chord. But you can hear it.

[offensive-teenager]

Thanks a lot for you detailed replies! You made my day.

I think i am finally starting to understand this!

[jancivil]

Neapolitan sixth chord, is a first inversion chord. In a figured bass, there is a '6' by the Roman numeral. "bII6"
This 'figures' the bass note, the third of the chord, to the root*. Hence it's called a 'sixth chord'.

In C:

*Db
Ab
*F

It indicates a subdominant function; IE: the bass note is the fourth of the scale.
Often enough, it moves directly to I, or I6.

[jancivil]

You might notice the Neopolitan sixth's closeness to the substitute dominant (or tritone substitution) in jazz. Extend the major triad built on the b2 to a 7 and you have the main substitute dominant. This takes the place of the V7 chord, turning the classic jazz ii-7|V7|I to ii-7|bII7|I Jaaathers usually play it with the root in the bass as it gives a lovely chromatic descending bassline.
If you see it in a fake book assume it takes the Lydian Dominant unless you've got a better idea.

Well, this does show you understand it's built on the degree a minor second from the tonic.

[pedant hat on]A neapolitan sixth chord is a first inversion triad which in understood to have a subdominant function.[/pedant hat off]

FYI: The bII7 is equivalent to the V7 when the fifth of either chord is a flat 5th. This is how the maneuver, below, is achieved >

[critic hat on]It's a way to dress up the ever-popular white-people musical question "ii-V-I" to seem to be more luxurious; and! to proceed by semitones down, which to some = 'more interesting' than Tea for Two.[/critics and pedants do suck, tho', innit]

[sockofgold]

Good lord, guys. Nice answers. Even whipped out sheet music for the B-Man. I am definitely going to have to come back to this when I am in front of my piano.

[Ogg Vorbis]

I apologize in advance for the sound of ax grinding going on in this post. I hope it's not too distracting while you are trying to read.

The terrible limitations of how we westerners study harmony is that by describing things as a triad formed on various scale degrees, we have no insight into HOW we got there, just a description of WHAT it is.

Describing a Neapolitan harmony as a first inversion triad built on bii (flatted supertonic) is a technically valid thing. Saying that it is a "pre-dominant" harmony is better because it describes its function, but it still leaves a some pretty big holes in the OPs original question...'how do I implement this?'

My harmony teacher always described things as "possibilities" or "opportunities." To form a cadence, you "might utilize" a iv or a iv6 or a iio or a iio6 or an Aug6th (Italian, French, German) or use some "modal borrowing" because they're all "available."

My question was, "But how do you know which one to use? Why did Beethoven use a Neapolitan Sixth in the adagio to the 'Moonlight' to prep the dominant and not some other harmony?"

He'd say, "Well, I suppose Beethoven *could have.* Everything is available."


Once I got some counterpoint training, I could finally get some insight.

(Yes, counterpoint is employed in that adagio mvmt!. Some might say, "Counterpoint is many independent voices going on simultaneously. This excerpt of Beethoven is not counterpoint, it's homophony...chords, man!" This shows a widespread misconception of what counterpoint actually is.

Counterpoint in its purist definition does not describe texture. A Mozart aria uses just as much counterpoint as a Bach Fugue. But in the latter, the term to describe "many independent voices" is "polyphony".. and not polyphony in the sense that Korg and Roland use it.)

Looking at the Nea. 6th through the lens of counterpoint, it's easy to see how this harmony developed if you consider a melody (cantus firmus, whatever) which cadences with some chromaticism (like Beethoven above).

In the key of Am a melodic ending might cadence with the notes A, Bb, A, G#, A. It's a nice coloration! Well, prepping the dominant, you could still use a cadential tonic 6/4 (using standard McAcademic harmony lingo) and the bass line would still be able to step in from D below to E, just as it does in a ii6 or iv.

The Bb in the soprano would still let you move a D in elegantly in the bass. It's a very acceptable consonant interval. Other voices at that moment can support this consonance with F, which gives you all the different note names you could stuff into one beat and still be consonant.

Of course in counterpoint you can use dissonance to your advantage, but the Beethoven example moves the Nea. harmony INTO a dissonant environment that demands resolution (namely a "V#7" harmony).

The thing is, that Beethoven himself did not study harmony the way university students do. He studied J.J. Fuchs "Gradus ad Parnassum" which is based on Palestrinian counterpoint, the same book that Bach thought highly of, the same book Hayden learned and taught from. Oh, and Johannes Brahms. Oh, and Mozart. And Paul Hindemith for that matter. And Bill Evans.

(actually I made up that last one. Bill Evans just "seems" to have been doused in counterpoint training.)

The main thing that pissed me off about my university musical education (and yes, I completed it) is that we spent a lot of time analyzing music without much insight. Formal analysis? Don't get me started... To know the distinctions between a "rounded binary" and an "asymmetrical continuous ternary" is sort of like taking apart a clock and labeling the gears and springs, etc. At the end of the exercise, you've got a lot of parts and pieces lying around with descriptions, but no clockmaking skills.

No wonder many musicians feel that theory is a waste of time.

[llatham]

)

The main thing that pissed me off about my university musical education (and yes, I completed it) is that we spent a lot of time analyzing music without much insight. Formal analysis? Don't get me started... To know the distinctions between a "rounded binary" and an "asymmetrical continuous ternary" is sort of like taking apart a clock and labeling the gears and springs, etc. At the end of the exercise, you've got a lot of parts and pieces lying around with descriptions, but no clockmaking skills.

No wonder many musicians feel that theory is a waste of time.

Did you go to graduate school? Yes, often, we have to "simplify" Theory to "facts" rather than concepts so that students can even begin to understand what's going on.

Actually, the Neapolitan 6 is not a tertian harmony built on b^2. But, if we tell students about non-tertian chords while they're still struggling with being able to order notes into a tertian triad (which some are never able to do with any fluency) they fall into the "but the rules keep changing mode" and zone out.

I'm sorry, college-level students are supposed to be intelligent - and many are - but many need to be treated like secondary school learners and be handed "facts" and "statistics" because that's they way they're used to learning. The ability to conceptualize advanced concepts in a field that's really pretty foreign to most students takes a backseat to "just getting the basics".

The Neapolitan Sixth chord is really a throwback to early music where there weren't just Triads and Seventh Chords. There were "chords of the Fifth" "Chords of the Sixth" and Chords of the Seventh". We've kept the name "Seventh Chords" but dropped "Fifth" in favor of Root Position, and "Sixth" in favor of First Inversion.

But not all "Sixth" chords are the First Inversion of some Root Position triad. The Neapolitan Sixth is *really* a chord built on scale degree 4 - yes, scale degree 4. It consists of a minor 3rd above scale degree 4, and a minor 6th above scale degree 4. F Ab Db in the key of C. Figured Bass points this out readily.

Calling it a "bII" is something that's been done so that students that have been "indoctrinated" as some my put it into taking sets of three notes and re-ordering them to find the Root, and then determine the quality and the inversion will be able to figure out what this chord is. If you start telling them they don't have to "uninvert" this one, because it's on scale degree 4, they'll be lost. ii6 and iio6 will constantly get mixed up with N6.

The authors Kostka and Payne, in their text Tonal Harmony, have a really nice description of the differnt types of first inversion chords and how they arise (though little mention is made of historic origins of non-tertian sonorities to avoid confusion at that point in the text) and when they get to Neapolitans (and the +6 family as well) they start calling them "sonorities" rather than "chords" and use an Alphabetical label ("N" - or "Ger+6" for example) rather than a Roman Numeral - because, these non-tertian sonorities are not "built on" the scale degree that you can uninvert them to "create" a Root-based tertian triad.

While I'm on that subject - the same is true about +6 family of chords. They are not "inversions" of II or IV, even though the notes can be re-arranged to make them appear as such. They contain a 3rd and a 6th (and an additional note in some types) above the "base" note - typically scale degree b6. But Ab-C-Eb-F# is not "some type of IV chord" or a "chord with some type of F note root". It is a "sixth" chord - a non-tertian sonority.

Peace,
Steve

[Ogg Vorbis]

Did you go to graduate school?

Nah...

Calling it a "bII" is something that's been done so that students that have been "indoctrinated" as some my put it into taking sets of three notes and re-ordering them to find the Root, and then determine the quality and the inversion will be able to figure out what this chord is. If you start telling them they don't have to "uninvert" this one, because it's on scale degree 4, they'll be lost. ii6 and iio6 will constantly get mixed up with N6.

Okay, Steve. Fair enough, but we could short-circuit this whole confusion by not getting into Rameau-based harmonic analysis of triads until after a thorough grounding in voice leading, resolving dissonances and the like in two voices, three and finally four.

If you look at the Nea. sixth, you've got a simple arrangement of consonant harmony that handle a chromatic alteration with the same, consistent "rules" that you'll find anywhere else. There's no having to look at ciphering "blocks" of harmonies by trying to discover what the triad might be if it were in root position, much less trying to offer explanations for exceptions to triadic harmonies that you've referred to.

I think if we grounded students in just voice leading and handling dissonance and resolving them toward consonance, we could better teach so-called "functional harmony" because we're learning directly HOW these "blocks" or "harmonic units" evolve.

Otherwise we've got this idea that Haydn sat down with his Strat and jammed on some "chords" under a melody until he came up with a composition. I think that's the impression modern theory leaves us with.

Don't believe me? Go check out other threads in this forum.

Thanks for the great discussion by the way, Steve. I really appreciate this forum and KVR in general.

[llatham]

Okay, Steve. Fair enough, but we could short-circuit this whole confusion by not getting into Rameau-based harmonic analysis of triads until after a thorough grounding in voice leading, resolving dissonances and the like in two voices, three and finally four.

I agree whole-heartedly. I personally would like to see music theory taught *chronologically* - students studying counterpoint for example will have a far greater grasp of voice-leading in more homophonic textures than just "Roman Numeralizing" everything. I despise that we start with "common practice" - granted, it's easier for us to do, since most people are generally already familiar with the basics - but for me - at a university - there's no reason we shouldn't actually teach students new things (or rather, old things, but new to them!).

Later,
Steve

[jancivil]

Did you go to graduate school?

Nah...

Calling it a "bII" is something that's been done so that students that have been "indoctrinated" as some my put it into taking sets of three notes and re-ordering them to find the Root, and then determine the quality and the inversion will be able to figure out what this chord is. If you start telling them they don't have to "uninvert" this one, because it's on scale degree 4, they'll be lost. ii6 and iio6 will constantly get mixed up with N6.

Okay, Steve. Fair enough, but we could short-circuit this whole confusion by not getting into Rameau-based harmonic analysis of triads until after a thorough grounding in voice leading, resolving dissonances and the like in two voices, three and finally four.

If you look at the Nea. sixth, you've got a simple arrangement of consonant harmony that handle a chromatic alteration with the same, consistent "rules" that you'll find anywhere else. There's no having to look at ciphering "blocks" of harmonies by trying to discover what the triad might be if it were in root position, much less trying to offer explanations for exceptions to triadic harmonies that you've referred to.

I think if we grounded students in just voice leading and handling dissonance and resolving them toward consonance, we could better teach so-called "functional harmony" because we're learning directly HOW these "blocks" or "harmonic units" evolve.

Otherwise we've got this idea that Haydn sat down with his Strat and jammed on some "chords" under a melody until he came up with a composition. I think that's the impression modern theory leaves us with.

Don't believe me? Go check out other threads in this forum.

Rameau-based! That's right!

I had organists as harmony teachers, and voice-leading was IT. You really should take harmony, counterpoint at the same time. Many courses go with counterpoint first. But, they might start with that 'modal' counterpoint bizness, which I don't find too useful.

Anyway, the bunny we're boiling is the so-called bII6 chord. Which function, again, is a subdominant chord, which features that major sixth, as Steve finally points out. Fourth degree in the bass.

NOT really like the b5 substitute for the dominant in bebop, as nuffink wants it to be, at all.

[someone called simon]

My oh my, I wish there was a thing whereby I could just click on the chord designation in these threads, and hear an audio file of it. In context, of course! I can follow about half of what's in here, but without formal theory training I can see the other half flying by slightly above my cranium somewhere...

My ears hear the N6 thing as a highbrow minor key version of what any number of folk/countryish songs might do, say in the key of D, finishing on the chords C, A7, D, with melody going C, C#, D.
Stick it in the relative minor and put those same melody notes over C, F#, Bm chords, give the C chord an E bass note and, voila, instant N6, yes?

I guess thats why I had trouble understanding that N6 terminology, my ears hear it as an inversion of a b2, not an augmented 4... despite what the common terminology is, my brain says the other thing when I hear it.

But those clickable chords would be nice to be able to hear the finer points.