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 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, 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 Meyer Apr 12 at 11:30
I've only ever heard the term "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
capitalisation is so common these days that I would not read any
significance to it. 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?!
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,
up it being a semitone lower than the 'mediant' ascending. It does seem confusing that
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 though
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 encountered 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 degree 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 people 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
vote harmony. Therefore it is logical to use the scale created for such a purpose,
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 minor;
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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