Uploaded March 2019 | Updated September 2026, 15 hours ago
In which we sing Home on the Range and learn about the subdominant triad and predominant function. (And also our first peek at a cadential 6-4!)
I said I would add links to learn more about the cadential 6-4 chord. But perhaps a simple explanation will suffice. The cadential 6-4 has the same notes as the tonic triad, DO MI and SO, but they behave differently, and this song is a perfect example. The most obvious difference is that we have SO in the bass of the implied harmony. That serves to destabilize the chord, so that MI and DO no longer are happy staying where they are, and want to "resolve" to RE and TI, respectively, to make a dominant triad. But once we reach that dominant triad, RE and TI are again unstable and want to resolve back to the tonic triad. We call it a 6-4 chord (normally written vertically, with the 6 above the 4) because the MI is a 6th up from the bass (SO) and the DO is a 4th up from the bass, a vestige of the practice called "figured bass" which was commonly used in the baroque and classical periods.
In which we sing Home on the Range and learn about the subdominant triad and predominant function. (And also our first peek at a cadential 6-4!)
I said I would add links to learn more about the cadential 6-4 chord. But perhaps a simple explanation will suffice. The cadential 6-4 has the same notes as the tonic triad, DO MI and SO, but they behave differently, and this song is a perfect example. The most obvious difference is that we have SO in the bass of the implied harmony. That serves to destabilize the chord, so that MI and DO no longer are happy staying where they are, and want to "resolve" to RE and TI, respectively, to make a dominant triad. But once we reach that dominant triad, RE and TI are again unstable and want to resolve back to the tonic triad. We call it a 6-4 chord (normally written vertically, with the 6 above the 4) because the MI is a 6th up from the bass (SO) and the DO is a 4th up from the bass, a vestige of the practice called "figured bass" which was commonly used in the baroque and classical periods.
