Talk:Supertonic

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There is a problem with this article:

"The supertonic is the root of the minor seventh chord...". As it stands, this doesn't make sense and it begs the question "Which minor seventh chord?". Of course, the answer can only be the supertonic minor seventh chord (rather than the mediant, or submediant minor seventh chords). But that's kind of obvious. You certainly don't want to say "The supertonic is the root of the supertonic minor seventh chord"

And why choose the minor seventh chord, anyway? It's also the root of the diminished, minor, and minor 9th, to name just a few of the chords that can be built on the supertonic.

I suggest taking it out completely and leaving the second part intact. The part about the supertonic being the fifth of the dominant seventh chord is much more meaningful and informative. (09 November 2005)

Agreed - It's a meaningless phrase and I've removed it. Fretsource 8 January 2006

I have added an audio example to this article. Hyacinth (talk) 19:52, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article is grossly inaccurate. This article suggests that a ii is the same as a V/V, which is flat-out wrong both in sound and in function (ii is minor or diminished, V/V is major). I removed the incorrect information and reworded some examples that were overly-complicated (why was the Lydian mode even mentioned?). --74.74.235.161 (talk) 21:56, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An anonymous user (24.125.51.106) made the following edit to the end of the first paragraph:

This is not right. A neapolitan is contextual. a pure supertonic is exactly what was initially stated... the second scale degree of a scale. neapolitan chords are built off of "ra," the solfege syllable which is a half step above the tonic/root.

Since the form of the edit is poor and I'm not qualified to judge the merits of the complaint, I'm simply going to revert it, but someone who is competent should evaluate it and decide if the article should be revised. —DavidConrad (talk) 10:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Surely the current text is wrong too since it says that the Db F Ab chord is bii6, whereas that chord is F Ab Db. The difference certainly matters both technically and musically, since the Db wants to rise rather than fall. It occured to me that adding its first inversion" to the text would fix this, but the text attached to the notational display claims to be showing "the first inversion of the neapolitan sixth", which is at best poorly worded as well. So I leave the edit to more experienced hands. Dmoorenh (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:45, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning the example given of the supertonic diminished seventh chord: shouldn't the chord be A-C-Eb-Gb, instead of A-C-Eb-F#? Amadeus webern (talk) 18:55, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would have thought that the default scale to discuss harmony on was the harmonic minor rather than the natural minor. As long as the seventh degree is not involved it doesn't matter musically, but it does seem more consistent didactically to use the harmonic minor) Dmoorenh (talk) 13:36, 14 July 2013 (UTC)\[reply]

The problem is that you can't pretend that the three forms of the minor scale, or even that two of the three, don't exist and aren't used in music. We have to deal with all three.

Wikipedia articles aren't classroom teachers, and Wikipedia contributors, even if they are classroom teachers professionally, are not acting as classroom teachers while contributing.

If you where or are a teacher or a student then you must have first hand experience with how accidentals are one of the most confusing things for students learning to play musical instruments (especially since they are usually not taught any math and as a little theory as possible). Hyacinth (talk) 23:10, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]