ABSTRACT
The very essence of the word “chromaticism” suggests a pitch that has been raised or lowered by an accidental, outside the given key in a piece of music. The musical behavior of a chromatic pitch is quite natural: a chromatically raised pitch (usually by one half step) will continue to ascend by a half step while a chromatically lowered pitch will continue to descend (by one half step or whole step). So any pitch chromatically raised by one-half step becomes a temporary leading tone and tonicizes the pitch to which it ascends. In a harmonic context, the melodic pitch “g-sharp” is also the chord 3rd of a dominant chord in “a” minor. Since the pitch “a” harmonically functions as vi in C major, the secondary function is called a “Five of Six” or V/vi. The g-sharp can also be the root of a secondary leading tone chord.
