Leading tone
However, in modes without a leading tone, such as Dorian and Mixolydian, a raised seventh is often featured during cadences,[3] such as in the harmonic minor scale.It functions to briefly tonicize a scale tone (usually the 5th degree)[4] as part of a secondary dominant chord.According to Ernst Kurth,[9] the major and minor thirds contain "latent" tendencies towards the perfect fourth and whole tone, respectively, and thus establish tonality.However, Carl Dahlhaus[10] contests Kurth's position, holding that this drive is in fact created through or with harmonic function, a root progression in another voice by a whole tone or fifth, or melodically (monophonically) by the context of the scale.Forte claims that the leading tone is only one example of a more general tendency: the strongest progressions, melodic and harmonic, are by half step.A leading-tone chord is a triad built on the seventh scale degree in major and the raised seventh-scale-degree in minor.According to John Bunyan Herbert, (who uses the term "subtonic", which later came to usually refer to a seventh scale degree pitched a whole tone below the tonic note), The subtonic [leading-tone] chord is founded upon seven (the leading tone) of the major key, and is a diminished chord..."[22] In a four-part chorale texture, the third of the leading-tone triad is doubled in order to avoid adding emphasis on the tritone created by the root and the fifth.Leading-tone seventh chords were not characteristic of Renaissance music but are typical of the Baroque and Classical period.The example below shows fully diminished seventh chords in the key of D major in the right hand in the third movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata No.The example below shows leading-tone seventh chords (in root position) functioning as dominants in a reduction of Mozart's Don Giovanni, K. 527, act 1, scene 13.
subtonicperfect authentic cadencemusic theoryresolvessemitonescale degreemajor scalemajor seventhRoman numeral analysisseventh chordWalter Pistondominant seventh chorddiatonic functiondiatonic scalewhole toneMixolydian modeDorianharmonic minor scalesecondarytonicizesecondary dominantBeethovenWaldstein SonataHugo RiemannHeinrich Schenkersupertonictritone substitutionErnst Kurthminor thirdsperfect fourthtonalityCarl Dahlhausmonophonicallyhalf stepdiminishedfirst inversionpassing chordroot positionPiano Sonata No. 3 in C major, Op. 2secondary leading-tone triadBach choralesecond inversionvoice leadingtritonediminished fifthaugmented fourthsuspensionsPiano Sonata No. 5half-diminisheddiminished seventh chordscommon practice periodmodal mixturesecondary leading-tone chordMozartdominantfunctiondominant ninth chordsubstituteddominant chordsreductionDon GiovanniFrançois-Joseph FétisMusica fictaAldwell, EdwardCarl SchachterBerger, KarolCoker, JerryDahlhaus, CarlFétis, François-JosephForte, AllenGoetschius, PercyGoldman, Richard FrankoKurth, ErnstRiemann, HugoRoot, George FrederickSchenker, HeinrichUniversal EditionCounterpointKostka, StefanFree CompositionStainer, JohnChordsAugmentedSuspendedSeventhDominant seventh flat fiveDiminished majorMinor-majorAugmented majorAugmented minorAltered seventhNondominantHarmonic seventhExtendedEleventhThirteenthUpper structureDominant 7♯9PolychordTone clusterAugmented sixthLydianSeven sixBridgeComplexe sonoreElektraFarbenMysticNorthern lightsPetrushkaPsalmsSo WhatTristanViennese trichordMixed intervalSecundalTertianQuartalSynthetic chordTetradDiatonicMediantSubdominantSubmediantAltered