Median t

Mediant, submediant, and minor keys I am familiar with the degree names: tonic, supertonic, mediant, etc but not sure of their use in minor keys. Let's consider C major m ajor and minor. Some are clear, the dominant and subdominant will be G and F in both. The mediant is E in C major, is it E♭ in C minor? The submediant is even less clear, is it A ♭ in C minor? What about A♮? It is an accidental in C minor but a common note nonetheless. Are there terms for the two As? up vote 4 down vote What is the leading note: B♭ or B♮? B♭ is in the key signature but if a favorite  progression is actually leading up to the tonic then B♮ seems more likely even in C minor. Whichever is the leading note, n ote, how is the other referred to? theory terminology asked Apr 12 at 9:10 shareimprove this question  badjohn 4139 The correct terminology is "Technical Names" and seeing that they are all names it is correct English to spell the with an upper case letter. So in other words Dominant not dominant.  –  Neil  Neil Meyer Apr Meyer Apr 12 at 11:30 I've only ever heard the term t erm "scale-degree names"; who uses "Technical 1  Names"?  –  Richard Apr 12 at 11:31 Thanks. I have not heard the term "Technical Names". I cannot recall whether I am more familiar with Dominant or dominant. Excessive Ex cessive capitalisation is so common these days that I would not read any significance to it.  –  badjohn  badjohn Apr 12 at 11:37 @NeilMeyer - everyone else appears to call them 'scale degrees'. And less than 1/3 of sites referring to them use capitals. So that's quite a minority. I'm staying with the majority. And 'technical names' itself doesn't need 3 capitals. It's used by ABRSM, but that doesn't make it biblical - they only discovered the natural minor a couple of years ago!! Am I getting picky?! pick y?!  –  Tim Apr 12 at 11:50

I just searched for Technical Names and mediant. I added mediant to the search since I thought that Technical Names alone would get many false hits. I was surprised by the number of responses as I had never heard the 1 term before. i did not attempt any analysis of how common it was. However, the results that I have looked at so far don't answer my minor key questions.  –  badjohn Apr 12 at 12:57 show 1 more comment

4 Answers active oldest votes The leading note/tone is always going to be a semitone under the tonic.In a minor key known as the subtonic . It would appear that the same terms are used for all three minor scale notes , but written such as 'the mediant of the melodic minor . That's fine for the jazz melodic - and also for the harmonic - but I can't find a reference (yet) for what the mediant would be called in classical melodic descending, it being a semitone lower than the 'mediant' ascending. It does seem confusing that up vote two different notes would have the same nomenclature! Good question! 1 down answered Apr 12 at 9:30 vote shareimprove this answer edited Apr 12 at 10:03 Tim 62.9k565156 Thanks. I saw subtonic for the first time while researching before asking th ough what I read did not go on to say that it allowed leading note to be reserved for B♮ (still using my C minor example). That makes sense, it would seem very odd to call B♭ the leading note. I can see that "mediant of the melodic minor" solves the ambiguity but it is rather clumsy. Also, what would unqualified mediant refer to? The piece modulated to the mediant? Fairly plausible in a minor key since that would be the relative major. –  badjohn Apr 12 at 10:23 Mediant is unequivocal. However, submediant would actually have to represent two notes - F/F# in Am classical melodic, for instance, so the plot thickens...  –  Tim Apr 12 at 11:38 Yes, the more interesting question is submediant. I seem to have my answer for leading note.  –  badjohn Apr 12 at 11:39 add a comment up Note: I misunderstood the question, and responded to mediant keys instead of vote mediant pitches. But I'll leave this up in case it's helpful. 1 down David Kopp, in his book  Chromatic Transformations in Nineteenth-Century

vote  Music , offers a naming system. He separates these mediants into two broad families of "lower" and "upper" (L and U) mediants. Within these two families, there are then three more specific types: "flat," "relative," and "sharp" (F, R, and S) mediants. AImportant to remember is that the relative mediants share two common tones, while the other mediants share just one. So in C major, the LFM ("lower flat mediant") is A ♭ major, the LRM ("lower relative mediant") is A minor, and the LSM ("lower sharp mediant") is A major. Meanwhile, the UFM is E ♭ major, the URM is E minor, and the USM is E major. In C minor , the LFM is A♭ minor, the LRM is A♭ major, and the LSM is A minor; the UFM is E ♭ minor, the URM is E ♭ major, and the USM is E minor. There are more specifics regarding distinctions between chromatic and disjunct mediants, but this is the gist of his system. I should note that this terminology is not that widely used. While most "academic" music theorists should   be familiar with this terminology, I haven't really seen it used outside of academia. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't use it!

And Tim is right on with the distinction between subtonic and leading tone, so I didn't discuss it here. answered Apr 12 at 11:01 shareimprove this answer edited Apr 12 at 13:36 Richard 12.9k32160 Thanks. My recent research showed me that subtonic is fairly common and consistent; I am a little surprised that I have not encou ntered it before. I can see the logic in the system you describe but I have not heard any of it before. The next time that I see some of my music literate friends, I will try to bring these terms into the conversation and see how it goes. You say leading tone so I guess that you are in the US. Is there a possibility of a US / UK difference here as in

half-note / minim?  –  badjohn Apr 12 at 11:19 Ah, sorry; leading tone = leading note! (I do think it's a US/UK difference, yes.) 1  –  Richard Apr 12 at 11:25  No problem there. I am used to that difference and also to half note / minim but I don't know whether there are differences in the area of degree names. –   badjohn Apr 12 at 11:29 I'm not aware of any other US/UK distinctions, but some theorists do prefer the term "predominant" instead of "subdominant." They're wrong :-) –  Richard Apr 12 at 11:31 In your 3rd and 4th paras., you say , e.g.'in Cm, the LFM is Ab minor '. Can a mediant (one note, I thought) have major or minor attatched? Have I missed something?  –  Tim Apr 12 at 11:43 show 3 more comments The scale degree names are the same between major and minor... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_(music) ...with the exception of the leading tone. The leading tone will always be a half-step  below the tonic. So, in minor, the harmonic and melodic minor  scales have a leading tone as their seventh scale degree. The natural minor has a subtonic  as its seventh degree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading-tone While you did not ask specifically you may be interested to know that the solfege up vote syllables do have variations for major/minor. So the third scale de gree in major is 1 down called "mi" but in minor it can be called "ma" or "me." You question seemed to be vote searching for a major/minor distinction in scale degree names. While there isn't a distinction for the degree names, there is on for solfege syllables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge answered Apr 13 at 14:52 shareimprove this answer edited Apr 13 at 15:12 Michael Curtis 1,663113 Thanks. So, using C minor as the example. The mediant is certainly E ♭. There are separate terms for B♭ and B♮. The submediant is A♭ but there is no term for A♮ even though it will occur commonly in a C minor piece. –   badjohn Apr 13 at 14:56

Thanks for the solfege information. As you say, beyond my question but interesting nonetheless.  –  badjohn Apr 13 at 14:57 Regarding A♮. I think you are right, there is no special term. But, in the theory discussions where the context is melodic minor I think peopl e may refer to that degree as a "raised sixth." But, of course that isn't really the term/name I think we would all like to have. :-)  –  Michael Curtis Apr 13 at 15:16 add a comment Anyone looking for a simple answer might consider this: The degrees of the scale outline Tonic, Mediant and Dominant as the 1st, 3rd and 5th degrees of the scale ascending. The 1st, 3rd and 5th degrees descending give us the Tonic, Submediant and Subdominant. A good reason not to use 'Subtonic', as the 'sub' part of the word doesn't mean 'immediately below' but rather means 'descending rather than ascending' - so if you called something the 'Subtonic' it should either mean a unison Tonic or the Tonic an octave lower, logically speaking. 'Subsupertonic' for the 7th degree if you don't like the British term, maybe? That only leaves the 2nd (Supertonic because it is above the Tonic) and 7th (Leading Note because it leads back up to the Tonic). As to building chords on these notes, the major ones are simple because they use the notes of the major scale for every triad. up vote 0 down The minor ones can also be simple. We are creating chords and therefore building harmony. Therefore it is logical to use the scale created for such a purpose, vote namely, the harmonic minor scale. So, in C minor, your chord on the: Tonic (C) will be minor; Supertonic (D) will be diminished; Mediant (Eb) will be augmented; Subdominant (F) will be mino r; Dominant (G) will be major; Submediant (Ab) will be major; and Leading Note (B) will be diminished. I acknowledge that academics will want to delve much deeper but something simpler for perhaps A level students needs to be here too. And anyone who posts on this thread deserves a medal after the long hours trying to stop the spell checker editing so many words - 'supersonic' for example! answered Apr 13 at 14:12 shareimprove this answer 

AnnFB 212 Thanks. I like your interpretation of sub in submediant and subdominant. When I first learned these terms, they seemed puzzling. Only much later, did your interpretation occur to me. I encountered subtonic even more recently,  just before my post, and as you say, it breaks the pattern. On the "British term", do you just mean "leading note" rather than "leading tone"? This seems to be a trivial difference. I was puzzled at first by your C minor comments but I expect that you are referring to the chords built on these notes. I was just asking the names of the notes. –  badjohn Apr 13 at 14:33 add a comment

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