Resolution and Chord Construction
The augmented sixth interval is typically between the sixth degree of the minor scale (henceforth ♭6) and the raised fourth degree (henceforth ♯4). With standard voice leading, the chord is followed directly or indirectly by some form of the dominant chord, in which both ♭6 and ♯4 have resolved to the fifth scale degree (henceforth 5). This tendency to resolve outwards to 5 is why the interval is spelled as an augmented sixth, rather than enharmonically as a minor seventh (♭6 and ♭5). Although augmented sixth chords are more common in the minor mode, they are also used in the major mode by borrowing ♭6 of the parallel minor scale.
Read more about this topic: Augmented Sixth Chord
Famous quotes containing the words resolution and, resolution, chord and/or construction:
“It is a part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate; to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Some hours seem not to be occasion for any deed, but for resolves to draw breath in. We do not directly go about the execution of the purpose that thrills us, but shut our doors behind us and ramble with prepared mind, as if the half were already done. Our resolution is taking root or hold on the earth then, as seeds first send a shoot downward which is fed by their own albumen, ere they send one upward to the light.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,
Sliding by semi-tones till I sink to a minor,—yes,
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,
Surveying a while the heights I rolled from into the deep;
Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,
The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)