F# or Gb enharmonic question

[John Ruggero]

The correct spelling of the individual notes in a chord depends on the voice leading that has produced the chord. And since voice-leading is the "eternal religion of music" as Beethoven is sometimes quoted as saying, there is only one correct spelling in each case, as pointed out by Harpsichordmaker.

However, there are exceptional cases in which even the best composers of the past have intentionally "misspelled" chords for the sake of readability. In fact whole sections of music have been misspelled enharmonically to keep things practical.

[LSL2026]

Hi all,

I am in Eb minor, and I have a quasi dominant chord of Bb, D, F#, Bb, resolving back to Eb minor chord (which is the tonic key). I was not sure if I should spell it as F# or Gb.

Thanks for any guidance!
HP.

I'm going to go all theory on you

First, again I’d ask, what’s the larger context here?

V+ chords aren’t typically used to resolve to minor i chords - so one possible question here is, if you should be doing it in the first place

III+ chords are not really a part of traditional minor keys either - they don’t appear as alterations of the III chord using the raised 7th - chords on scale degree 3 tend to just be major triads or major 7th chords.

That said, there are places (I can recall at least one in a Bach Chorale) where it appears this way.

But what that REALLY is is a V chord with an anticipation. Basically:

F - Gb- Gb
D - D - Eb
Bb -Bb - Eb

But without the preparation.

So in that case, based on that “funtionality” is is a “Bb chord with a non-chord tone ancitipating the 3rd of the i chord” - meaning it should be spelled as Gb.

That “looks like” a Gb+ augmented chord - which is why some people believe they’ve found a real III+, but usually they don’t know enough about voice-leading and part-writing and non-chord tones to really grok it. They just see it as “a possible name for the note content”.

If it resolved to a Picardy Third - Bb+ to Eb - then yeah, F# would be the spelling of choice - it’s what would happen in the key of Eb major.

But here, it’s arbitrary to spell it as F# “just to make it a Bb triad”.

Bb D is “dominant enough” and the Gb is just a non-chord tone - so it’s spelled like it is in the key, in this case moving to the same note so it makes even more sense to spell it Gb.

Without the exact context though - there could be a good reason to spell it as F#…

But I’d say it’s going to be a rare context as most others would simply be Gb.

Or to put all this another way, even if it is a Bb chord, it’s ok to misspell a note based on resolution.

After all, a Bb Ger+6 chord is going to have G# rather than Ab, because it resolves to A, not G.

But SOMETIMES an engraver/editor/publisher/composer might spell as Ab - because in a previous passage it DID resolve to G, and that’s the trick here - enharmonic reinterpretation for a different resolution - spelled that way or note.

It’s going to Gb - Gb makes sense here.