Everything about Leading Tone totally explained
In
music theory, a
leading-tone (called the leading-
note outside the US) is a
note or
pitch which
resolves or "leads" to a note one
semitone higher or lower, being a lower and upper leading-tone, respectively.
Generally, the
leading tone is the seventh tonal degree of the
diatonic scale leading
up to the
tonic. For example, in the C
major scale (white keys on a piano, starting on C), the leading tone is the note B; and the leading tone
chord uses the notes B, D, and F: a
diminished triad. In
music theory, the leading tone triad is symbolized by the
Roman numeral vii°.
According to
Ernst Kurth (1913) the
major and
minor thirds contain "latent" tendencies towards the
perfect fourth and
whole-tone, respectively, and thus establish
tonality. However,
Carl Dahlhaus (1990) shows 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. For example, the leading tone of alternating C
chord and F
minor chords is either the note E leading to F, if F is
tonic, or A♭ leading to G, if C is tonic. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the leading-tone is created by the progression from imperfect to perfect
consonances, such as a major third to a perfect fifth or minor third to a
unison. The same pitch outside of the imperfect consonance isn't a leading tone.
As a
diatonic function the leading-tone is the seventh scale degree of any
diatonic scale when the distance between it and the
tonic is a single
semitone. In
diatonic scales where there's a
whole tone between the seventh scale degree and the tonic, such as the
Mixolydian mode, the seventh degree is the
subtonic.
Sources
- Dahlhaus, Carl. Gjerdingen, Robert O. trans. (1990). Studies in the Origin of Harmonic Tonality, p.184-5. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09135-8.
- Kurth, Ernst (1913). Die Voraussetzungen der theoretischen Harmonik und der tonalen Darstellungssysteme, p.119ff. Bern.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Leading Tone'.
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