Describing chords - Extended Roman System
E-mail comments/questions 
Whilst the exercises HERE are useful they do not seem to use the Extended Roman System correctly as required by the AB. Minor chords need to be shown with lower case letters.
Anyhow this page is not about the Extended Roman System as such, it's about knowing how to describe chords by being sure what the prevailing key is.
I'm looking at the AB Grade 6 workbook as you are likely to have a copy.
Page 62 Exercise 8 (Question e) where there is a piece of music in G minor. Six chords need to be identified.
I can see from the opening that the music stays in G minor (as I'd expect) and the F# signs in bar 2 confirm this; F# is the leading note of G minor.
The music doesn't modulate for these 6 chords so I just need to work them out. They are
1 2 3 4 5 6 Roman I Ib IIb V I VI Extended Roman i ib iiob i ib VI The chord iiob in the extract doesn't have the E flat but there is nothing else it can be. Chord ii leads nicely to V anyway.
[If you know about using chords from the melodic minor scales [or the natural minor] you might be tempted to think this chord used the notes A and C from chord VII. You'd be pretty silly to think this because the F is about to be sharpened in the next chord and look what happens at the end of the bar!]Let's assume the AB had asked you identify the chords in bar 6. In this case you'd need to trace through what happens from bar 3 onwards. The F naturals clearly take the music somewhere and, indeed, there was an imperfect cadence in B flat major at the start of bar 5; so we arein B flat major [NOT F major]
Hence the eight chords in bar 6, one on each beat, are - in B flat major -
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 I Ib iib V vi IV V iii
Page 63 Exercise 9 (Question c) where there is a piece of music in G minor. Six chords need to be identified.
The extract ends in F major and I'm on pretty safe ground to assume that by bar 14 it has already reach the home key and the remaining bars are a cadential formula. Although the question asks us to say if any of the chords are augmented or diminished (an invitation to use Extended Roman?) none of them are. Hence the answers below (all major, hence upper case) are correct in both Roman and Extended Roman
1 2 3 4 5 6 I IV Ib IV Ic V7 Now, you have to spot key changes in order to be able to do Question (b). In bar 9 the music is in C major so we need to describe the chords in terms of C major.
Bar 8 beat 2 Bar 9 chord 1 Bar 9 chord 2 Bar 9 chord 3 Bar 9 chord 4 V7d Ib I Vb V
Study this dubious piece of harmony which I have written! Try to name all the chords. Although I have said which keys the music passes through, ask yourself if you can see why.
* Note: For the purists amongst you the music isn't actually in D major in bar 4; I suppose you could call the dotted crotchet II7b in Extended Roman (upper case for major and 7 for a 7th). Bar 4 is actually a dominant (V) chord because really this is an imperfect cadence in G with the C# as a chromatic passing note in the bass. Ho hum, isn't harmony wonderful? To make life easier take it as D major as indicated.
E-mail comments/questions
This page was last edited on 02/01/2009
