Klarinet Archive - Posting 000106.txt from 2001/06

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: [kl] ....more about harmony
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 03:20:26 -0400

Thank you, Karl and Ed, for the replies (and to anybody else whose reply
I haven't seen yet).

In the dozen or so measures of Bach's piece that I'm trying to
understand, I have labelled the chords in the normal method of Roman
numerals (I ii iii IV V etc). I have thought about inversions, and I
have identified which note is the root of each triad, and I have
identified which note is the "7" in a four-note chord, and so forth.

But Bach (not me) uses one chord repeatedly that I can't fit into the
normal scheme as I understand it. Can someone tell me what this chord
is?

In the key of Eb major, and I'm spelling each note chromatically:

E-natural G-natural Bb D-natural

My (struggling) analysis is:

The fifth (E-natural to Bb) is diminished (ambiguous tritone), and the
third (E-natural to G-natural) is minor. Therefore this is a
diminished chord with a 7 (D-natural) as the fourth note.

But the key signature (Eb) causes the chord's root to be an accidental,
and therefore assigning a Roman numeral to it ("I" in this case) doesn't
make sense, does it? If I have identified the chord correctly, what do
I do with this anomaly? (besides just play it? <smile>)

Thank you,
Bill

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