Supermodal chords?

product questions
1

How come I see supermodal chords all the time in analysis by other users but the option doesn’t come up in my Borrowed menu? How can I use them in my own TheoryPads?

2

See this post Using chords in any transposition

3

Thanks a lot. Still, it’s a pretty fucked up way of doing things, I wish supermodal just appeared on the “borrow” menu. Maybe it could appear there on the bottom, and have an additional submenu pop down when you mouse over it with Supermodal +I, Supermodal +II or whatever.

4

Remember that “supermode” is not any particular mode but a common term for any transposition of the diatonic scale having more than 1 sharp sign or more than 5 flat signs compared to the relative Major. It arises since the tonic chord is not supposed to be altered in modal mixture, so when that chord is sharpened or flattened, the resulting “mode” is inconsistent with the fact that such modes are defined by taking a particular scale degree as the new tonic. There are exceptions, usually ♯io which is identical to viio/ii.

6 supermodes can be accessed by switching between modes, and 16 more can be reached by copying and pasting, but not all of those are useful if inline modulation of Theorytabs is supported and/or one considers enharmonic equivalents, even sparingly.

For me it is sufficient to add a sharp/flat key for the chords which gives 7 sharps or flats to the current mode; for example, the 3-sharp supermode, having the chords ♯i - II - III - ♯iv - ♯vo - VI - vii, could be accessed by sharpening all chords borrowed from the 4-flat Phrygian, i - ♭II - ♭III - iv - vo - ♭VI - ♭vii. This could easily create double accidentals (double flats already occur in some modes with the popular style for chords, and Hookpad doesn’t even support double sharps in Roman numerals as of 1.1.2), but this I believe is a more straightforward way to allow easier access to those supermodal chords, which are important e.g. to replace incorrect usage of applied chords.

5

Thank you for your in-depth reply, I’m not an expert and this is all incredibly useful information. I really appreciate all the hard work you do around here, @HertzDevil. There aren’t many things on the internet that I love more than your meticulous videogame BGM transcripts. Seriously.