Semitone - Augmented Unison

The augmented unison, the interval produced by the augmentation, or widening by one-half step, of the perfect unison, does not occur between diatonic scale steps, but instead between a scale step and a chromatic alteration of the same step. It is also called a chromatic semitone. The augmented unison is abbreviated A1, or aug 1. Its inversion is the diminished octave (d8, or dim 8). The augmented unison is also the inversion of the augmented octave, because the interval of the diminished unison does not exist. This is because a unison is always made larger when one note of the interval is changed with an accidental.

Melodically, an augmented unison very frequently occurs when proceeding to a chromatic chord, such as a secondary dominant, a diminished seventh chord, or an augmented sixth chord. Its use is also often the consequence of a melody proceeding in semitones, regardless of harmonic underpinning, e.g. D, D♯, E, F, F♯. (Restricting the notation to only minor seconds is impractical, as the same example would have a rapidly increasing number of accidentals, written enharmonically as D, E♭, F♭, G, A).

Harmonically, augmented unisons are quite rare in tonal repertoire. In the example to the right, Liszt had written an E♭ against an E♮ in the bass. Here E♭ was preferred to a D♯ to make the tone's function clear as part of an F dominant seventh chord, and the augmented unison is the result of superimposing this harmony upon an E pedal point.

In addition to this kind of usage, harmonic augmented unisons are frequently written in modern works involving tone clusters, such as Iannis Xenakis' Evryali for piano solo.