Do you use the borrowed (VI) cadence?

(no, not the deceptive cadence! ;) )

In music theory we were all taught the acceptable cadence techniques - perfect and imperfect (V-I), plagal (IV-I), deceptive (V-vi), half (?-V).

But, I've noticed that all these cadences sound very "square," and sometimes even old-fashioned. A composer who wanted to impress a modern audience wouldn't find a V-I-V-I-V-I ending as effective as Beethoven did.

Well I was fiddling around on the piano and discovered a cadence I like - the borrowed submediant leading to the tonic, (VI)-I. So, in C major that would be Ab major - C major. This has a very "explosive" sound.

The more I listened for it, the more I heard it! That root motion by a major third is very distinctive (even when the root isn't in the bass). Some examples from Youtube -

Stravinsky, Firebird Suite, "Firebird Variation" 1:29

Aqua Teen movie trailer, 2:21

Eventually I figured it out it sounded "explosive" because of the influence of John Williams who uses it CONSTANTLY. Now many "epic movie" trailers will mimic Williams and end on a VI-I cadence to climax the music.

Questions to discuss:

1. Do you use the (VI) cadence in your music?

2. How should we analyze this cadence in music theory? Are there examples in the pre-20th century repertoire?

3. Does the VI cadence sound more "exciting"?

1. Do you use the (VI) cadence in your music?

I actually do not. I rarely use cadences, in fact, I rarely know I use cadences. haha. However, when I improvise in my music, I do it all of the time. I always use the I - (VI) - I in improvisation because people don't expect it. But, that's about it.

2. How should we analyze this cadence in music theory? Are there examples in the pre-20th century repertoire?

I haven't seen any unless it is a chromatic passage, really. Although, I do remember seeing something like it in some Brahms...

3. Does the VI cadence sound more "exciting"?

Nahh, I guess, but I don't feel that it is more exciting than a I/IV. (ex. C major chord with an F natural in the Bass).

I haven't seen any unless it is a chromatic passage, really. Although, I do remember seeing something like it in some Brahms...

That's what it reminded me of too. I can't think of an example of exactly this variant, but the first movement of his third symphony begins (and uses throughout) a cadence that has a similar effect: F major (the tonic) - a diminished 7th chord on b - F major. You could analyse that in several ways. If you take this chord (b-d-f-ab) as it's written it would be a VII to a V, to which it isn't resolved, but directly to the I. If you write it as g#-b-d-f however it becomes a diminished seventh chord on #II, which is quite frequently used in the 19th century, making the cadence I - #II#37 - I. Some sort of plagal cadence.

You could treat the cadence you mentioned as a variant of that, with the third missing and the fifth lowered to create an additional upper leading tone to the fifth of the tonic. This would make this chord basically a chromatised II7 chord with raised base note (to get a leading tone to the third of the tonic), lowered fifth note (to get a leading tone to the fifth of the tonic), and missing third.

In C major, such a chord should technically be written as d#-ab-c, but to make it easier it would usually be written as ab-c-eb, making it look like an Ab major chord.

This may sound very far-fetched, but a lot of the harmony at the end of the 19th century is based on turning notes of standart cadence chords into leading tones, so to me, this makes more sense than treating it as a borrowed VI in progression to I. But maybe a lot of the powerful effect of this chord does in fact come from its ambiguity: The chord itself sounds like the mediant, but in the progression to the tonic it suddenly can be seen as a complex of leading tones, which creates what you call an "explosive" effect, because something that sounds like a stable mediant is suddenly interpreted as an instable, directed chord.

This may sound very far-fetched, but a lot of the harmony at the end of the 19th century is based on turning notes of standart cadence chords into leading tones, so to me, this makes more sense than treating it as a borrowed VI in progression to I. But maybe a lot of the powerful effect of this chord does in fact come from its ambiguity: The chord itself sounds like the mediant, but in the progression to the tonic it suddenly can be seen as a complex of leading tones, which creates what you call an "explosive" effect, because something that sounds like a stable mediant is suddenly interpreted as an instable, directed chord.

I completely agree, actually! You have a lot of knowledge on Music Theory that I don't. But, I agree with how it is borrowed and therefore transferred and interpreted as two distinct chords on top of itself. If you look at the chords, we see that the Ab could go to the G, the C stays the same, and the Eb moves up a half step to E natural. They are ALL leading tones. So, what does that mean for the chord, then?

yeah its used in a whole lot of musicals as well, its a very cool sound and i like to use it a lot

Oh, I forgot another John Williams usage of this cadence... actually, the first one I noticed once I started listening for it.

What's ironic about it is Williams uses VI-I-VI-I (repeat ad nauseam) in a very Beethovenesque way, but it sounds so much fresher (to me) than V-I-V-I.

Looking at the midi score, the chords are E - C - E, or I-(VI)-I. The "different" chord he uses right before the last E major, is a C major with added B, or a (VI) M7.

In C major, that would be Ab-C-Eb-G. Can a major 7 be respelled as anything else? If not I think that lends credence to the idea that the root is the flat six as opposed to a raised second degree.

I'm leaning towards the opinion that the chord is "nonfunctional." It isn't technically a dominant, but it feels like one because of its distance from the tonic harmonically (sixth degree chord, borrowed from a different mode) and its closeness to tonic chromatically (all tones are common or leading). It "just works." :P

In the Stravinsky piece,

What you are calling a bVI is really just a tonic harmony(Root movement of dominant to tonic) but instead of going diatonically it goes chromatically.

So, say in Cmaj you have

G C

But we can sorta interpolate the half steps. You know for example that the D in G will go to either E or C but by a whole step. We can just fill that in chromatically. The B will go to C so thats taken care of. The F resolves down to E. The G could either stay G or become a chromatic neighbor.

So for example

F E

G G

D E

B C

G C

But we could interpolate it like

F E E

G Ab G

D Eb E

B C C

G C C

or Ab C Eb for the middle chord.

(the Ab being the G's upper neighbor)

Remember, the second chord represents Cmaj, or at least on its way to becoming Cmaj. The tonic note is both in the soprano and bass in the Stravinsky piece. Essentially its just chromatically interpolating between the dominant and tonic where diatonic notes exist. It also could be considered a type of Ger+6. But the important feature is that of the tonic notes existing in it giving it a cadential feel and the true tonic occurring moments later without any change in root. (so the last 2 measures is simply the tonic)

(technically its not functioning as a Ger+6 but sorta "looks" like it.)

The V-I progression is undeniable so I don't think calling it any type of bVI-I progression is correct. It just happens to be abnormal(Although I'd bet you'll find similar occurrences in cpp).

Hi humnabnabisco,

Technically what you are referring to is not a cadence, but an altered chord or modulation.

Since bVII (in major) is not a normal chord but could appear if you mixed the minor and major variants of one key which is common in Romantic music. In that case, since VII normally has tonic function this is not a cadence but could be used within the 'I'-part of any cadence. It can alternatively be interpreted as a replacer of IV, thus a plagal cadence.

But, actually, this can also be used as a so-called mediant modulation (not sure if that's the correct term in English). In the classical period, modulations were done to keys that were related to the tonic in 5ths throught diatonic and later also chromatic modulation (This means that you can modulate to the keys of I, IV, V and their respective major and minor variants, although people later also modulated to other keys). In the romantic period it was discovered (at least as early as Shubert) that you could modulate also to the respective mediants of the currently used chord. The modulating chord's root differs a 3th with the previous chord, and in order to sound like a modulation it needs to containt chromatically altered tones of the previous chord (or else the new chord could still be explained in the previous key). Because of their very suprising but pleasing character they are used all throughout film music.

Hope this explains something,

Niku

Thanks for this!

I didn't knew about the borrowed VI chord, but I know the borrowed iv is also a very nice chord. In a major song, finish your piece with a I-iv-I cadence, sounds really nice too.

Calling it VI is confusing as it suggests (in C Major for simplicity) that it is an AM chord (A C# E) however, bVI (with a b5) is the accurate descriptive term for it.

It is in essence a variation of a plagal cadence. Where bVI is (yet another) cousin of IV. The glorious sound of the plagal cadence (see Mozart's Kyrie from the Requiem and Handle's Hallelujah) is also heard in this cadence, as it is (depending on context) in bII with a b5 - I cadence.

Other Chromatic Chords

Zoon down to the bottom and you'll find "Chromatic Mediant and Coloristic Chord Usage" ;)

Seems to me like we're borrowing triads from the minor scale.

like..

C | Ab | Bb | C

E | C | D | E

G | Eb | F | G

Which makes sense, becuase if you put a melody on top of it, I would think normally you would use the minor scale.

Or you could use a:

C,Ab,Eb,Bb progression

very standard pop progression

although the key centre is normally minor

thats my take on it

To me, this makes more sense if it is simply analyzed as a modal interchange chord (borrowed chord), with subdominant function. First, I am looking for it's acoustical pull and effect.. It's root and fifth are chromatic to the already established tonality, they inject both some interest and expectation for resolution (as less stable degrees, the chord's root has a strong pull to the fifth of the mode, and the chord's fifth has a strong pool to the third of the mode). So that's why it works.