bIII diminished in classical?

[BWV]

Was thinking that you can’t find this as a stock progression in 18th-19th classical music, seeing the bIII diminished - ii as a variant of II7-ii, followed by a cadence like in Ipanema or Take the A Train - which you still don’t see as a stock galant progression- so did the GASB songwriters develop this or was there an earlier source?

[ragman1]

You can google it. AI has reams about the use of the bIII chord in classical music + specific examples.

[BWV]

You can google it. AI has reams about the use of the bIII chord in classical music + specific examples.

sure the borrowed III from the parallel minor, but not a diminished 7th resolving down by a half step

[Christian Miller]

Was thinking that you can’t find this as a stock progression in 18th-19th classical music, seeing the bIII diminished - ii as a variant of II7-ii, followed by a cadence like in Ipanema or Take the A Train - which you still don’t see as a stock galant progression- so did the GASB songwriters develop this or was there an earlier source?

That’s something I’d also like to know.

Sorry I don’t have anything more to add at present.


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[Christian Miller]

You do get #IVo7 but I expect you’ve already seen that.

My guess would be that the progression started life as an inversion of this. Timeline wise I’d be looking towards the later 19th century.

But this is all guess work.


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[pauln]

For your purpose does a stock progression mean exclusion of non-harmonic tones (non-chord tones) such as:
- passing tone
- accented passing tone
- neighboring tone
- accented neighboring tone
- anticipation
- escape tone
- appoggiatura
- suspension
- retardfation
- changing tones (double neighboring tones or neighbor group)
or any of the more obscure ones?

[Mick-7]

Well, if you think of it as a II7b9 chord, it's just V of V with IIm7 in between, say: C6/E > D7b9/Eb > Dm7 > Db7b9.

[Christian Miller]

The last two posts show the trouble with asking these types of questions. They are framed purely in terms of ‘this is the theory.’ This information is freely available online and it is the type of information you are likely to learn as a music undergraduate etc.

What the OP actually wants to know is the historical context- which means examples from the repertoire and discussion of this chord from contemporary sources. That’s a harder to research as it requires a bit actual scholarship. I think it’s possible but it takes time.

I’d start by going to Tchaikovsky’s harmony book and see if it pops up there.

My experience has been that it is very hard to definitely answer apparently simple questions such as ‘when did jazz musicians start consciously using the melodic minor modes?’ In this case it’s even harder because so much of jazz is rooted in a vernacular, oral history. So, you need a work that combines academic ethnography with musicology. Paul Berliner’s book ‘Thinking in Jazz’ is the only work of that kind that comes to mind.

Classical is better served - but not as well as you might think….

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[James W]

Was thinking that you can’t find this as a stock progression in 18th-19th classical music, seeing the bIII diminished - ii as a variant of II7-ii, followed by a cadence like in Ipanema or Take the A Train - which you still don’t see as a stock galant progression- so did the GASB songwriters develop this or was there an earlier source?

I'll have a look at some of my harmony text books later. In the meantime I'll say FWIW (not much) you're likely to find it more in 19th C composers like Schubert onwards...

[pamosmusic]

You do get #IVo7 but I expect you’ve already seen that.

My guess would be that the progression started life as an inversion of this. Timeline wise I’d be looking towards the later 19th century.

But this is all guess work.


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That’s interesting. And the swing era did love a 1 b3 2 5 in the bass.

[Christian Miller]

The other origin myth might be as a modulatory variation of the chromatic Lamento bass (1-7-b7-6-b5-5) or the passus duriusculus. (Everything is more intimidating in Latin)

Dm C#o7 Am/C Bo7 Gm/Bb A
Or
Dm A7/C# D7/C G7/B C7/Bb A

For example

So, if you are going from Dm to Bb, you have for a simple diatonic bass

Dm F7/C Bb

and you can add in chromatic half steps by using 6 3, 6 5 or dim7 chords. The dim chord belongs to the Dm key, but we move to Bb for the next chord, so we use a typical harmony on the second scale degree bass - V7 6 4 3 for instance (F7/C).

So

Dm A7/C# F7/C Bb
Dm C#o7 F7/C Bb
or if we include another chord from the Lamento -

Dm C#o7 F7/C G7/B Bb

Say

Which is where it shows up in How Insensitive and It Was Just One of Those Things etc.

It then later gets reinterpreted as a chord progression going from IIIm to I

I can imagine coming across this in baroque and classical music. But I have no examples tbh

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[Mick-7]

Well, it's a conspicuous chromatic passing chord, what more do you need to know? It has two or more descending chromatic passing notes in each chord. Some musician in some historical period played it and said to himself, "Duh, that'll work just fine!"

For example: (C6) C-E-G-A > (Ebo7/D7b9) C-Eb-F#-A > (Dm7) C-D-F-A > (G7b9) B-D-F-Ab.

[BWV]

Ragtime tunes like to cycle through dominants, maybe that was part of it

Tried a Gemini deep research project, but the result was just slop

[Christian Miller]

Ragtime tunes like to cycle through dominants, maybe that was part of it

Tried a Gemini deep research project, but the result was just slop

There’s not enough written about this on the internet to return sensible results from an LLM. This really is something I think you’ll have to research yourself if you want the answer.

[pauln]

Can we specify an instance of the object
in question? Am I missing something?

The ii is enharmonic to rootless bVIImaj7
to which all inversions of bIIIdim resolve.

[Christian Miller]

Can we specify an instance of the object
in question? Am I missing something?

The ii is enharmonic to rootless bVIImaj7
to which all inversions of bIIIdim resolve.

The OP is looking for an instance of bIIIo7 chord in a classical work

He is also asking whether or not it could be derived from some variant of Galant schemata.

(Correct the if I'm wrong BWV)

[pauln]

Like this?

[Christian Miller]

Like this?

This is jazz?

[Christian Miller]

Wikipedia has this to say FWIW

"Diminished seventh chords may also be rooted on scale degrees other than the leading-tone, either as secondary function chords temporarily borrowed from other keys, or as appoggiatura chords: a chord rooted on the raised second scale degree (D#–F#–A–C in the key of C) acts as an appoggiatura to the tonic (C major) chord, and one rooted on the raised sixth scale degree (A#–#–E–G in C major) acts as an appoggiatura to the dominant (G major) chord. Such chords however, having no leading tone in relation to the chords to which they resolve, cannot properly have a dominant function. They are therefore referred to commonly as non-dominant diminished seventh chords or common tone diminished seventh chords (see below)."

Which makes sense to me. No examples though. These are also called 'common tone diminished chords' but the bass is usually the tonic. Alos these chords are not held to have any function and usually just oscilate between I and Io7. So not really the same thing, but related.

I can certainly think of an example of one of those of the top of my head - the theme of Chopin's Rondo ala Mazurka opus 5. The lydian melody is super hip. I'm sure there's loads of other examples.

[Christian Miller]

I did find a C7 'bebop' scale if it's any consolation though:

[ragman1]

sure the borrowed III from the parallel minor, but not a diminished 7th resolving down by a half step

Sorry, I didn't read it properly. Thanks for the civil reply. In that case I can only suggest that a bIII dim is probably used as a passing chord even in classical music. Apart from that I've no idea.

Intuitively, I'd say it was probably in classical music already, it has that kind of feel about it. Ideal for some GASB era tunes, I'd say. But I can't prove it.

[ragman1]

I think there was a long discussion about this issue some time ago here. I seem to remember some regarded the bIIIo as a form of the V of ii, as in Em - Ebo - Dm - G7 - C. So the A7 with a b3 and b5 becomes the dim chord.

It'll be there somewhere. But I don't seem to remember that it was ever satisfactorily resolved (probably because it came into the over-thinking it category)

[setemupjoe]

While not exactly the same, the biii° is very similar to the augmented 6th, specifically the German 6th, and moves in the same way linking a iiim or Ima/3 to a iim.

[Christian Miller]

While not exactly the same, the biii° is very similar to the augmented 6th, specifically the German 6th, and moves in the same way linking a iiim or Ima/3 to a iim.

The augmented 6th usually sets up the dominant chord or the cadential 6/4

It’s not a million miles away tho.

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[setemupjoe]

The augmented 6th usually sets up the dominant chord or the cadential 6/4

It’s not a million miles away tho.

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Yes, you’re right. If we think of the ii as a suspended V it makes sense.