classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" al ...

from

Western culture Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Cle ...

, an augmented fifth () is an interval produced by widening a

perfect fifth In music theory, a perfect fifth is the musical interval corresponding to a pair of pitches with a frequency ratio of 3:2, or very nearly so. In classical music from Western culture, a fifth is the interval from the first to the last of five ...

by a chromatic semitone.Benward & Saker (2003). ''Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. I'', p.54. . For instance, the interval from C to G is a perfect fifth, seven semitones wide, and both the intervals from C to G, and from C to G are augmented fifths, spanning eight semitones. Being augmented, it is considered a dissonant interval. Its

inversion Inversion or inversions may refer to: Arts * , a French gay magazine (1924/1925) * ''Inversion'' (artwork), a 2005 temporary sculpture in Houston, Texas * Inversion (music), a term with various meanings in music theory and musical set theory * ...

is the diminished fourth, and its

enharmonic In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note, interval, or key signature that is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature but "spelled", or named differently. The enharmonic spelling of a writte ...

equivalent is the

minor sixth In Western classical music, a minor sixth is a musical interval encompassing six staff positions (see Interval number for more details), and is one of two commonly occurring sixths (the other one being the major sixth). It is qualified as '' ...

. The augmented fifth only began to make an appearance at the beginning of the common practice period of music as a consequence of composers seeking to strengthen the normally weak seventh degree when composing music in minor modes. This was achieved by chromatically raising the seventh degree (or subtonic) to match that of the unstable seventh degree (or leading tone) of the

major mode The major scale (or Ionian mode) is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales. Like many musical scales, it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at double i ...

(an increasingly widespread practice that led to the creation of a modified version of the minor scale known as the harmonic minor scale). A consequence of this was that the interval between the minor mode's already lowered third degree (

mediant In music, the mediant (''Latin'': to be in the middle) is the third scale degree () of a diatonic scale, being the note halfway between the tonic and the dominant.Benward & Saker (2003), p.32. In the movable do solfège system, the mediant note ...

) and the newly raised seventh degree (leading note), previously a perfect fifth, had now been "augmented" by a semitone. Another result of this practice was the appearance of the first

augmented triad Augment or augmentation may refer to: Language * Augment (Indo-European), a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages *Augment (Bantu languages), a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns ...

s, built on the same (mediant) degree, in place of the naturally occurring major chord. As music became increasingly chromatic, the augmented fifth was used with correspondingly greater freedom and also became a common component of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

chords. Near the end of the nineteenth century the augmented fifth became commonly used in a dominant chord. This would create an augmented dominant (or V) chord. The augmented fifth of the chord would then act as a leading tone to the third of the next chord. This augmented V chord would never precede a minor tonic (or i) chord since the augmented fifth of the dominant chord is identical to the third of the tonic chord. In an equal tempered tuning, an augmented fifth is equal to eight semitones, a ratio of 2^2/3:1 (about 1.587:1), or 800 cents. The 25:16 just augmented fifth arises in the C harmonic minor scale between E and B. The augmented fifth is a context-dependent dissonance. That is, when heard in certain contexts, such as that described above, the interval will sound dissonant. In other contexts, however, the same eight-semitone interval will simply be heard (and notated) as its

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...

enharmonic equivalent, the minor sixth.

Pythagorean augmented fifth

The Pythagorean augmented fifth is the ratio 6561:4096, or about 815.64 cents.Haluska (2003), p.xxiv. Pythagorean augmented fifth.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Augmented Fifth Augmented intervals Fifths (music)

Pythagorean augmented fifth

See also

References