CHAPTER 3 (PART 3)
NON-FUNCTIONAL CHORDS
Passing Chords
Passing chords are formed by the stepwise movement of one or more voices
from a harmony note in one chord to form an intermediate chord or chords
on the way to becoming a harmony note in another chord. The stepwise movement
may be a filling in by one note or multiple notes. If the filling-in is
by multiple notes then I will refer to this as a linear
progression. (See chapter 4.).
One or more voices may be involved in similar or contrary motion. This
type of chord has its origins in 16th century polyphony. See voice
leading appendix for more details. The reason for giving these chords
a special name is not because they have a special significance but because
they are capable of being confused with genuine functional chords. In
reality, they arise out of voice leading movements just as other surface
voice leading patterns.
For a chord to be a passing chord it must normally be made up solely
of notes from the preceding chord plus linear moving notes. The one exemption
to this is that chromatic auxiliary notes are sometimes used in addition
to the passing notes. This is because of the way that voice leading patterns
can be combined. See Voice
Leading Patterns Combined.
The passing chords so formed are thus non-functional
and the surrounding chords on which the movement starts and ends are functional
chords. Passing chords are used in both static and dynamic harmony.
The passing chord is named by analogy with the
passing note. The following example contains a passing note marked
with an * :
The passing note fills in the gap between the two harmony
notes in the chords before and after the passing note. The short duration
and nature of the passing note does not create a feeling of a
change of harmony. The passing chord is an extension of the passing
note such that the duration of the passing note(s) and the way the note(s)
sound, in conjunction with other notes of the chord, creates a senses
of a change in harmony.
Using the analytical symbols introduced earlier, the following harmonic outlines indicate some of the possibilities within the diatonic major scale:
.
All the passing chords in the figure above are made up of two types of notes:
1. notes which are retained from the preceding chord and
2. notes that take part in the stepwise movement.
Normally, if other notes are involved, the chord is not a passing chord.
The one exemption to this is that chromatic auxiliary notes are sometimes
used. These are introduced below. The curved brackets are used to indicate
that the chords are passing chords. The remaining symbols have meanings
as introduced previously.
The examples moving from chord I to chord IV are common in both static
and dynamic harmony
and the examples moving form chord I to chord VI are common in dynamic
harmony, in which case the progression is a β (beta)
chord progression.
All the harmonic outlines shown start with chord I. However, the patterns
may be transposed so that they start on other scale
steps. For example, I ( III ) IV could be transposed to II ( IV )
V etc. It is not the actual scale steps involved that matter but the succession
of scale steps. Similar patterns may also be derived for the minor key.
The following is an example of a) (i)
The note combination highlighted by an * appears at first sight to be a chord III in root position. However, this is not a I - III - IV - I progression because the chord III arises as a result of a passing note between chord I and chord IV. The F# is a stepwise filling in note between the G in chord I and the E in chord IV. The bass note B arises as an arpeggiation of the G major chord in the bass. As the chord III is the result of a passing note (the F#). It will be referred to as a passing chord. The chord III is thus the result of a melodic (voice leading) movement rather than an harmonic movement. The duration of the note and the way it combines with the other notes are sufficient to justify referring to the chord as a passing chord.
The harmonic outline shows this in a graphical way. The white note heads
indicate functional
chords and the black note heads indicate non-functional
chords. The melodic movement from the G in chord I to the F# passing
note to the E in chord IV is indicated by the beam connecting the three
notes involved in the linear movement. The symbols are thus used
to express analytical meanings and these should not be confused with the
normal meaning of the symbols.
In this example, it is fairly easy to see the melodic nature
of the passing chord. However, it is not always so easy to establish which
chords in a progression are melodic and which are harmonic. Chords that
at first sight appear to be functional may arise as the result of one
or more auxiliary notes, passing notes or appoggiaturas. For the harmony
and syntactic structures to be correctly understood it is necessary to
correctly identify and separate these non-functional chords from the underlying
progression.
The following is an example of b) (ii):
The following example contains the same chord progression but within a slower harmonic rhythm:
So far, we have only considered diatonic
passing chords. However, the number of possibilities for chromatic passing
notes is enormous. Any two notes separated by a tone in two successive
functional chords could be elaborated by a stepwise chromatic filling
in note. For example, C# can fill in the gap between C and D. Chromatic
passing notes are even possible between two notes a minor third apart.
For example, the space between the descending C to A interval, in C major,
can be filled in by a B-flat in place of the diatonic B-natural.
When you consider that these chromatic notes can be combined in many ways the number of possibilities is enormous. The resulting chromatic harmonies add variety and interest to the underlying diatonic harmonies but do not usually imply a change in key. Due to the number of possibilities, two figures follow. The first showing single voice only movements and the second showing some of the common possibilities involving chromatic movement in move than one voice.
The following is an example of 3.5 a) (iii). The augmented 5th chord arises from the filling in of the interval between chord I and chord IV:
All of the above examples are made up purely of passing notes with the exception of the second example in the minor key. In this common example the passing chord between the chord I and chord V is made up of two semitone auxiliary notes. The use of two semitone auxiliary notes in this way to make up passing chords appears to be the only real exception to the rule that passing chords are made up of passing notes. Note that this is not an auxiliary chord as the auxiliary notes do not return to the same chord but rather move on to another chord. The auxiliary notes used are part of the surface voice leading which is why the augmented 6th chord created is a non-functional chord.
Note: There is a further description of the passing note and passing chords in the Voice Leading Appendix at: Arpeggiation and Passing Notes and in subsequent sections.