Discussion 11c - Voice-leading for First and Third Inversion Chords

Class Discussion

Inversions allow for more possibilities, or wiggle room in your part writing. Inversions allow for smooth voice leading in the bass voice.

First Inversion chords have a tendency tone in the bass that wants to resolve up the the root of the next chord. For example, a V chord in first inversion would have Ti in the bass, which wants to resolve up to Do.

Third inversion chords also use a tendency tone in the bass: the seventh of the chord. This needs to resolve down to the third of the next chord, which means third inversion chords go to first inversion chords.

Class Discussion 2021

First- and third-inversion chords in circle-of-fifths progressions

• I - V6 - I
  • Melody: C D C. Can’t use C B C because we end up with a PP8
  • Inner voices: alto voice is really the only one with options. D or G on the second beat are both fine, but the latter has a skip.
• I - V6/5 - I
  • Melody: C D C again
  • Inner voices: we started with G F E in T, but this creates a spacing error. Keeping it simple with G G G instead takes care of that
• I V4/2 - I6
  • Third inversion chords in this type of progression will always move to a first inversion chord because chordal sevenths resolve down to the third of the next chord

Voicing a viio using functional substitution

• Can’t double the root of a viio because it’s a tendency tone
• The fifth is acting as the chordal seventh and follows the same resolution rules. Ex: in C, viio is B diminished. The fifth of the chord, F, will resolve down by step to E in I
• Frustrated sevenths are not a thing. We can only have a frustrated leading tone
• Don’t try and do viio in root position. As demonstrated in class, it doesn’t really work–we tried multiple inner voicings and all of them had a bunch of errors
• I - viio - V6/5 - I
  • This is the one time you can double the fifth in a root position viio because it will result in a doubled root for V6/5, but honestly…it’s better to try and avoid them whenever possible

Using functional substitutions for pre-dominants

• 1: I - IV - V - I
  • For the IV, we have to take out the D.
• 2: I - ii6 - V - I
  • We have to take out the C because ii is no longer a IV. t
  • To avoid this, double the third in ii6! ii and IV, as explained before, are similar in the same way as V and viio. ii6 can follow the same doubling rules as IV–its third is IV’s root, which we saw in #1
• 3: I - ii6/5 - V - I
  • Voicing for ii6/5, SATB: C D A (F).
• Essentially: this is a rare thing, much like a frustrated leading tone, but it’s still good to know about for the purposes of analysis. This one also happens a lot, so it’s especially good to know about in advance

Function

• Primary: tonic, dominant, predominant. When we assign these to chords in a progression, we’re saying they fill a certain slot
• Secondary: chords that borrow the functions of primary chords
• Tertiary: using a chord in a way that has nothing to do with primary or secondary function. There are four kinds: Passing, Cadential, Pedal, and Arpeggiated.

Passing chords

• Creates passing motion. If you identify a chord as “passing,” you’re saying it has no primary function. Instead, we’re using it for smooth voice leading. To ID these chords, you put the Roman numeral in parentheses and write “passing” underneath it
• Like other tertiary functions, these extend the primary functions on either side of them. If you insert a passing chord between two dominant function chords, you’ve simply lengthened the dominant section
• V6 - IV6 - V. We made the IV6 a vi and V6 to vi is good, but vi to V is not…. so we label it a passing chord.
  • There’s no good option for this one, really…each one has its own errors, whether actual or just “not ideal,” so it’s a matter of picking the one that is the least bad