Resolution of Increased and Decreased Triad

Not every triad requires permission. For example, if we are dealing with chords of tonic triad, then where is he to be resolved? It is a tonic anyway. If you take a subdominant triad, then it does not aspire to resolution by itself, but rather, on the contrary, willingly moves away from the tonic as far as possible.

Dominant triad - yes, it wants permission, but not always. It possesses such an expressive and driving force that, quite often, on the contrary, they try to isolate it from the tonic, to single out by stopping the musical phrase on it, which from this sound with interrogative intonation.

So in what cases is a triad resolution required? But it is required when, as part of a chord (triad - is this a chord?), Extremely unstable dissonant harmonies appear - or some newts, or characteristic intervals. Such consonances are in diminished and increased triads, therefore, we will learn to resolve them.

Resolution of minced triads

Reduced triads are built, both in natural and in harmonic form of major and minor. We will not analyze the details now: how and at what levels to build. To help you - a small sign and an article on the topic "How to build a triad?", From which you will get answers to these questions - sort it out! And we will try with specific examples to see how reduced triads are resolved and why this is the case and not otherwise.

Let's first build diminished triads in natural in C major and in minor: on the seventh and second steps, respectively, we draw over the "snowman" without any extra characters. Here's what happened:

In these "snowman chords", i.e. triads, between the lower and upper sounds the same interval is formed, which makes the sound of the chord unstable. In this case, it is a reduced fifth.

Therefore, in order for the triad resolution to be logically and musically correct, it sounds good, then first of all you need to make the correct resolution of this reduced quint, which, as you remember, should be further reduced with resolution and pass into the third.

And where to put the remaining average sound? It would be possible to think a lot about different versions of its resolution, but we instead suggest memorizing one simple rule: the average sound of a triad is conducted to the lower sound of the third.

Now let's see how diminished triads behave in harmonic major and minor. Construct them in D major and D minor.

The harmonic appearance of the fret immediately makes itself felt - there appear a sign of flatness in front of the note s in D major (lowering the sixth) and a sharp sign in front of the note to D in the minor (raising the seventh). But, the most important thing is that again between the extreme sounds of the "snowmen" there are reduced quints, which we should also resolve to the third. With average sound, everything is the same.

Thus, we can conclude as follows: reduced triad resolves into the tonic third with doubling of the lower sound in it (after all, in the triad itself there are three sounds, which means there must be three in the resolution).

Resolution of magnified triads

There are no enlarged triads in natural modes, they are built only in harmonic major and harmonic minor (go back to the plate and see which steps). Let's look at them in the key of E major and E minor:

We see that here between the extreme sounds (lower and upper) there is an interval - an increased fifth, and therefore, in order to get the correct resolution of the triad, we need to correctly resolve this very fifth. Increased quint belongs to the category of characteristic intervals that occur only in harmonic modes, and therefore there is always that level in these harmonic modes that changes (decreases or rises).

An increased fifth at resolution increases, eventually turning into a large sixth, and in this case, in order for the resolution to occur, we need to change just one note - the very “characteristic” step, which is most often marked by some random alteration sign .

If we have major and "characteristic" level is lowered (sixth low), then we need to lower it and transfer it to the heel level. And if we are dealing with a minor, where the “characteristic” level is the high seventh, then, on the contrary, we raise it even more and translate it directly into tonic, that is, the first level.

Everything! After that, nothing more needs to be done; all other sounds are simply rewritten, as they are part of the tonic triad. It turns out that in order to resolve the increased triad, you need to change just one note - either lower the low one, or raise the high one.

What was the result? The increased triad in the major was resolved in the tonic quartet sequectus chord, and the increased triad in the minor, in the tonic sextaccord. Tonic, even if imperfect, is achieved, and, therefore, the problem is solved!

Triad resolution - to summarize

So, time has come to take stock. Firstly, we found out that only increased and diminished triads are needed for resolution. Secondly, we derived permissions patterns, which can be summarized in the following rules: