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HARMONIC EXPANSIONS


CHAPTER 1: EXPANDING THE TONIC TRIAD; THE FUNDAMENTAL HARMONIC PROGRESSION
1.7 Expanding the Dominant with Consonant Skips; Changing Tones
Illustration 1. Expanded dominant in Schubert's Violin Sonata Op.137, No.1: III.

Illustration 2. The dominant expanded by consonant skips (CS). In measures 1 and 2, the skips produce changing tones (CT's).


  • The dominant can also be expanded. Illustration 1 above shows the opening of the third movement of Schubert's Violin Sonata Op.137, No.1 in which a lower neighbor in the violin expands the dominant seventh. See also the more distant passing tone relationship, F-sharp, E and D.
  • To expand the dominant with a consonant skip insert another dominant chord--with soprano changing from scale degree 2 to 7, or from 7 to 2--before the final tonic. See Illustration 2. Spacing may change between dominant chords.
  • Changing tones are pairs of embellishing tones which leave a more stable note by step, skip in the opposite direction by third, and then return to the original chord tone. In Examples 1 and 2 of illustration 2, the notes above the dominant are changing tones (CT's).


  • The above organ reduction of Berlioz's “Rakoczy March” from Damnation of Faust shows changing tones above dominant chords.

Your turn!
  1. DOWNLOAD pdf file 01.7 to print out and write on.
  2. ENTER your part writing on the Harmonic Expansions 1.7 page in Noteflight.

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