Leading-tone

For the lowered seventh degree, see subtonic.

Seventh scale degree, or leading-tone, leading to the first scale degree, or tonic, in C major  Play EQ  Play Just .

Tonic and leading tone chords in C  Play . C major and B diminished (b°) chords.  Play just leading tone chord

Dominant seventh and incomplete dominant seventh in C major: G7 and b° chords  Play .

Tritone resolution inward and outwards  Play inward  Play outwards . Both notes resolve by half step.

Tritone substitution, ii-subV-I on C, creates an upper leading-note (D♭, which leads down to C)  play

In music theory, a leading-note (also subsemitone, and called the leading-tone in 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 scale degree of the diatonic scale, with a strong affinity for and leading melodically to the tonic (Benward & Saker 2003, 203). For example, in the C major scale (white keys on a piano, starting on C), the leading note is the note B; and the leading note chord uses the notes B, D, and F: a diminished triad. In music theory, the leading note triad is symbolized by the Roman numeral vii°. By contrast, an upper leading-tone (Berger 1987, 148; Coker 1991, 50), which leads down, may be found as the seventh of the dominant seventh chord, which leads to the third of the tonic chord (in C: F of a G7 chord lead to E of a CM chord).

Seventh chord resolution from Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (Benward & Saker 2003, 203)  Play . Note that the seventh resolves down by half step.

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 note 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 works from the 14th and 15th century Western tradition, the leading-note 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 is not a leading note.

As a diatonic function the leading-note 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 is a whole tone between the seventh scale degree and the tonic, such as the Mixolydian mode, the seventh degree is called instead, the subtonic.

Leading-tone seventh chord in C major: vii^ø7  Play .

Leading-tone seventh chord in C minor: vii^o7  Play .

The leading-tone seventh chords are vii^ø7 and vii^o7,(Benward & Saker 2003, 219) in major and in minor.

See also

• Secondary leading-tone chord
• Musica ficta

Sources

• Benward, Bruce, and Marilyn Nadine Saker (2003). Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. I, seventh edition. Boston: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-294262-0.
• Berger, Karol (1987). Musica Ficta: Theories of Accidental Inflections in Vocal Polyphony from Marchetto da Padova to Gioseffo Zarlino. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521328713 (cloth); ISBN 052154338X (pbk).
• Coker, Jerry (1991). Elements of the Jazz Language for the Developing Improvisor. Miami, Fla.: CCP/Belwin, Inc. ISBN 157623875X.
• Dahlhaus, Carl (1990). Studies in the Origin of Harmonic Tonality, trans. Robert O. Gjerdingen, pp.184-85. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09135-8.
• Kurth, Ernst (1913). Die Voraussetzungen der theoretischen Harmonik und der tonalen Darstellungssysteme, pp. 119ff. Bern: Akademische Buchhandlung M. Drechsel. Unaltered reprint edition, with an afterword by Carl DahlhausMunich: E. Katzbichler, 1973. ISBN 3873970147.
• Stainer, John, and William Alexander Barrett (eds.) (1876). A Dictionary of Musical Terms. London: Novello, Ewer and Co. New and revised edition, London: Novello & Co, 1898.