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May 23

Reverse of a picardy third

Listen to the Exciters song "Tell Him". The chorus is in E major, but (according to all sheet music sources for this song) the final word "now" is on an E minor chord. This is the reverse of a picardy third. Does this have a special name?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:54, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On a listen, the chorus in the Exciters version is in F major, and the guitarist clearly comps F major on that final word/the following final two bars of the chorus. The original version (performed by Gil Hamilton, as "Tell Her") has the chorus in Bb major, and the harmony for the bars in question is similarly Bb major. The same transcription error popping up in multiple sheet music sources is a relatively common occurrence in popular song, usually stemming from an error in a hastily-made fake book chart that later gets copied into "official" transcriptions/arrangements.

If such a harmonic progression had occured here (to a minor chord), it would be considered a type of modulation to the parallel minor (sometimes termed "parallel modulation"), as the following sections (the verses) are in an F minor tonality. In addition, the term "Picardy third" is typically only applied to the end of a work/large structural section (the latter chiefly in Western classical music), so a movement at the end of a verse-chorus form section isn't quite analogous. (fugues) (talk) 01:16, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In List of major/minor compositions it is simply called a "reverse Picardy third"; thus also it is called in The Cambridge Companion to Schubert's Winterreise. A nice example from classical music is Mendelssohn's Op. 7 No. 7. Double sharp (talk) 02:20, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]