J. Anthony Allen teaches diminished seventh chords and how they expand the tonic, plus the 4-2 chord as a transitional device. He covers voice-leading strategies, the difference between diminished thirds and augmented seconds, and why spelling matters even when chords sound identical.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Music theory comprehensive part 10. If you can believe it, we've made it to number 10, and we're gonna keep going. We're just trucking right through all of this. So. So in this class, we're going to be talking primarily about diminished chords. Diminished chords are this thing that we've kind of danced around all the way up till now. But in this class, we're going to focus in on those chords and some of the really powerful properties that they have, Even, like, some weird, mystical properties. But I'll save that for later. We're going to be talking about the different types of diminished chords, particularly diminished seventh chords. How they're used in pieces, how to use them in your own pieces, how to spot them, and especially how to use them as a tonic expansion, which is what we've been talking about for the last couple classes, is expansion of the different areas. You might not think of diminished seventh chords as a tonic expansion, but you'll be surprised by the end of this class. We'll be using them all over the place to expand tonic like it's nobody's business. We're also in this class going to look at some other tonic expansion that we haven't looked at yet. In particular, the 42 chord. Remember, that's a seventh chord with the seventh on the bottom. It can be a really fun way to transition between two chords and also gives us a neat little taste of something called secondary dominance that we're going to be learning about very, very soon. Not in this class, but in very near class. So I hope you decided to join us in this class. It's going to be another great one. Really excited about it. We had a good time filming it, and I say we, because you will see a cameo from Scully the dog in this class. Guaranteed she gets some real face time in this one. So look forward to that and please join us in the class. It's a great one. Sam. From G flat would be there, but it's not. Why can't that be right? Right? That can't be right because this is not spelled as a third. Right? We need this to look like a third and it looks like a second. So right now, what we actually have written here is these notes are actually an augmented second. What I need to make is a diminished third. Now, yes, you're thinking that's a stupid, like, semantics issue because it's gonna sound exactly the same, but it's gonna be written different. Right? And I'm gonna say, yes, but that is important in music theory. What are we gonna change? Our notes are gonna be B natural. It should be flat in minor. But remember, we're gonna boost that leading tone up to make this chord work. B, D is fine. Natural. F is natural. So nothing needs to change here. Right? So let's see how our resolutions worked if we just do the same thing. Okay, so I just resolved the same chord four different ways, But I didn't resolve the same chord four different ways. I decided which note in this chord because it's perfectly symmetrical, can was going to be acting like the leading tone.
