Neapolitan Sixth

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The "Neapolitan Sixth" is a type of chord in music theory that involves an altered harmony typically used within the context of common-practice harmony, especially during the Classical and Romantic periods. The Neapolitan Sixth chord is known for its distinctive sound and its tendency to create harmonic tension and resolution.

The Neapolitan Sixth chord is built on the lowered second degree of the scale (in minor keys) or the lowered sixth degree (in major keys). It consists of a root, a minor third above the root, and a diminished fifth above the root. This creates a unique and somewhat dissonant sound that seeks resolution.

The Neapolitan Sixth chord often resolves to the dominant chord or the tonic chord. In its resolution, the diminished fifth of the Neapolitan Sixth chord typically moves outward by a half step to the third of the dominant chord, while the root moves downward by a half step to the fifth of the dominant chord.

Example of Neapolitan Sixth

The 'NEAPOLITAN 6' chord, EXPLAINED

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Frankie Chan

California Baptist University (US), Hong Kong Baptist University

Master

Violin, Western Music Theory

Mr Yip

London College of Music and University of West London (UK), The Education University of Hong Kong

Master (Current)

Piano, Piano Accompaniment, Violin, Western Music Theory

Noelle Lui

The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts

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Pipa

Caleb Li

Royal College of Music (UK), The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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Violin

Cyanne Chan

Hong Kong Baptist University

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Classical Vocal, Western Music Theory

Thomas Hui

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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Piano

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As an iconic American composer, Terry Riley (born 1935) is always considered as a minimalist. However, this kind of thoughts would be ignoring part of his creativity. In fact, Riley added plenty elements in his compositions since 1970s, especially when he started collaborating with the Kronos Quartet. Riley’s composing style is very extensive, including improvisation, polyrhythm and jazz. He adopted classical elements, such as instrumentation, musical forms, structure and tonality. He also combined the elements from different periods to create unique musical textures. This research focuses on Terry Riley’s String Quartet, G Song. The research will be divided into two parts. The first part introduces Riley’s life and the background of G Song. The second part focuses on music analysis, including the musical structure “Two forms in one work”; The harmony “Unresolved Dissonance”; The rhythm “Metric Modulation”; The baroque “Canon”; The modern “Pointillism”. The purpose of this study is to discuss how Riley combined classicism and modernism into a work, and discuss why the statement “Terry Riley is considered as minimalist” would be ignoring part of his story.

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Common Practice Guide

After many years of being a student first and a teacher after, we often noticed that in our every day practice we can make small mistakes that may slow us down or might not bring the best out of our music. With these short tips we tried to go through some of them, hoping it will help students (and not only!) in their daily practice.