Originally posted by Jolly McJollyson
oh, I see! I use something like that when I play blues:

It's like A7-D7-D#7-E7 and the D#7 kind of works the same way as your "neapolitans." Maybe it's the same thing (guess not since it's not a major chord but is, as you can see, a 7th), I don't know.

Ah no. :) The example I posted works out extremely well cause the bass stays with a simple 1, 4, 5, 1 pattern in the major scale. All being major tones in the major scale of course. So this concept makes a point in staying major on the bass and guitar during the neopolitan. If it was Cmaj/Dmin/G7/Cmaj instead. You can see that the bass tone is major during the second chord, but the guitar part isn't. To fix that we flatten it (Db), and it becomes major with the inversion that the bass is playing also. You end up with the bass and guitar both playing a major tone on the second chord, the Neapolitan.

The progression you wrote, the D#7 pays the role of a passing tone rather than a neapolitan. Not because of the dominant 7 but because of where that chord lies in relation to the key. The neapolitan is the flattened supertonic (b2) in a key, the D#7 as you wrote it is a raised sub-dominant (#4). Try playing that D#7 as a D#7#5, it strenghten the movement.

A good way to quickly use this is a jam situation especially if you have a bass player there. Say your jamming in the key of C major and you see the bass play a F, you can play a Dbmaj chord over that F and get a Neapolitan chord just by doing that. That is just one of your options. Another thing is it doesn't matter where it goes next. The Neapolitan is not limited to going straight to the dominant or the tonic. Although I will say it is best to make the progression somehow get to the dominant chord to keep the sense of key, like the chord progression below. A cool progression in C major is Cmaj - Dbmaj/F - Bbmaj - G7. See this one went to a bVII instead of V7. Hope that helps. :)

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 10-10-2003 at 04:21 AM]