Whole-Tone and Augmented
One chord with no bottom and no top, one scale with no home at all. Go deeper into the augmented chord: two major thirds that split the octave into three equal parts, so there are only four of them. Use it as a passing chord in C – C+ – F and C – C+ – Am, then climb the whole-tone scale, six notes a whole step apart with no leading tone: the floating sound of Debussy's Voiles and of film dream sequences. Then look back at the whole Iconic Chords module.
In this lesson you'll
- Build augmented chords on C, E and A flat and hear that they are the same three notes rotated; then build one on D, a new set.
- Play the augmented chord as a passing chord, I – I+ – IV (C C+ F) and I – I+ – vi (C C+ Am), following the fifth as it climbs G, G sharp, A.
- Improvise with the whole-tone scale C D E F# G# A# over a low C, and play along with the passing-chord loop.
Music in this lesson
- Voiles (Préludes, Book 1)Claude Debussy · 1909–10
Remember
The augmented chord is two major thirds (C E G#): one more major third returns to C, so it splits the octave into three equal parts, has no clear root, and only four different augmented chords exist.
As a passing chord its raised fifth acts like a leading tone: in C – C+ – F the G rises to G# and then to A, the third of F; in C – C+ – Am it rises to A, the root.
The whole-tone scale has six equal steps and no half steps, so no leading tone pulls you home and the music floats; only two whole-tone scales exist, and every other note stacks into an augmented chord.