The Picardy Third
A minor piece that ends on a major chord. One note rises a half step and everything before it changes colour in retrospect. The reason it lands so hard is the chord just before it, which takes you deeper into minor first.
- 1 note
- 4 chords
- maximum change, minimum movement
same family
The progression
i - iv - i - I
Why it works
In A minor: Am, Dm, Am, A major. Am is A, C, E. A major is A, C sharp, E. Two of the three notes stay exactly where they are, and in four voices only one voice moves, by a half step. There is hardly a cheaper gesture available, and it recolours the entire piece behind it. That ratio, maximum change for minimum movement, is why the device has lasted four hundred years.
Hear it in context
The Dm before it is doing more work than the ending itself. Dm is D, F, A, and that F is the flattened sixth, the darkest note in the key. Going from Am to Dm, the A holds, the C moves to D and the E rises a half step to F, landing a semitone above the fifth you have been leaning on. It presses. So you go further down into minor before the chord that turns the light on.
Make it yours
- Save it for the last bar
One Picardy third per piece; twice and it is a mannerism.
- Put the minor iv in front of it
That is the difference between a bright ending and an ending that means something.
- Let an inner voice make the move
Keep the melody on the fifth and the change becomes a colour rather than an event.
When to reach for it
For a final chord that should feel like sunrise. For any minor piece that needs somewhere to go in its last bar.
When to leave it alone
When the song is about something unresolved. A bright ending over a bitter lyric reads as irony, which may not be what you meant.
Keep going
Everything in chord progressions
- The ii V I
- The Deceptive Cadence
- The Plagal Landing
- The Picardy Third
- The Gospel Sus