Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom

Section 9.5 Embellishing Harmonies

Some chords do not have harmonic function. They act as passing or neighboring harmonies to embellish tonic, dominant, and sometimes pre-dominant function.

Here is an example with a passing harmony.

In this case, the \(\left.\text{vii}^{\circ}{}\middle/\text{3rd}\right.\) chord is a passing chord rather than a chord with dominant function. (Remember that the \(\left.\text{I}\middle/\text{5th}\right.\) chord has dominant function.)