Escape Tones, Appoggiaturas, and Pedal Points

The four types covered so far all left the chord by step or by being held — walking out, or standing still and being left behind.

The remaining three are different in kind. Two involve a leap, and in the third the melody does not move at all.

Appoggiatura — leap in, walk down

A non-chord tone approached by leap and resolved by step in the opposite direction is an appoggiatura. The name comes from the Italian appoggiare, to lean, which describes what the note does.

Appoggiaturas are forceful because the approach is abrupt. A passing tone climbs the stairs, announcing the dissonance in advance; an appoggiatura arrives by leap, leaving the listener no time to brace.

An appoggiatura is typically placed on a strong beat. The dissonance sounds at the head of the beat and then resolves, which makes the gesture of leaning and then recovering explicit. Romantic melodies use it constantly, as do the opening phrases of a great deal of popular song.

A melody with an appoggiatura, and without

▶Without appoggiatura▶With appoggiatura

Check: The first lands straightforwardly on a chord tone. The second leaps to the note above just before the landing and comes down from there. Only one note has been added, and it changes the emotional weight considerably. Listen for the instant of the leap and notice how the note fails to agree with the chord.

straight from B to C

Preparation is what separates appoggiatura from suspension

Appoggiaturas and suspensions both take the form of a dissonance resolving down by step. Looking only at the resolution, they are indistinguishable.

The dividing line is entirely how the note arrived.

	Approach	Status in the previous chord
Suspension	held over from the previous note	prepared as a chord tone
Appoggiatura	arrives by leap	not prepared

With preparation it sounds late; without it, it sounds like a plunge. That distinction is exactly why the previous lesson insisted a suspension needs all three stages.

Check

The soprano sounds F4 over I (C E G). The note immediately before it was C4. What is this F4?

neighbor tonesuspensionpassing toneappoggiatura

Check answer

Escape tone — walk in, leap away

A non-chord tone approached by step and left by leap in the opposite direction is an escape tone, also known by the French term échappée.

It is the exact mirror of an appoggiatura. The appoggiatura leaps in and steps out; the escape tone steps in and leaps out.

As the name says, an escape tone does not resolve. It starts upward, changes its mind, and leaps off in the other direction. No tension is left behind, which makes it a light, agile ornament.

The reason appoggiaturas feel heavy and escape tones light comes down to where the dissonance is dealt with. An appoggiatura settles the matter by resolving; an escape tone leaves it unsettled and moves on to the next chord.

Appoggiatura beside escape tone

▶Appoggiatura (leaps in)▶Escape tone (leaps out)

Check: The first leaps in and comes down, so it arrives somewhere. The second brushes a note and immediately leaps away, leaving only a snag behind as it passes. Both are notes outside the chord, and resolving or not resolving gives them completely different weight — an escape tone when you want ornament, an appoggiatura when you want feeling.

resolves and settles

Pedal point — a non-chord tone made by not moving

The last of the seven arises by an entirely different mechanism.

One note is sustained while the harmony beneath it changes. That note is a pedal point, named for the organ pedal held down through a long passage.

The other six were cases of the melody departing from the chord. The pedal point alone has the melody standing still while the harmony departs from it.

In the figure C sounds through four measures. It is the root in I and the fifth in IV, but only over V does it fall outside the chord. The melody has not moved a millimeter; the harmony moving is what turned it into a non-chord tone.

Pedal points sit almost exclusively on the tonic or the dominant. Sustaining the tonic under moving harmony late in a piece conveys that the destination is already decided. Sustaining the dominant instead accumulates tension by deferring the resolution.

With and without a pedal point

▶No pedal▶Tonic pedal

Check: The harmony is I – IV – V – I in both. The first simply moves through the chords. The second holds a low C underneath throughout. At the third chord, V, you should hear the held C grinding against the harmony above it — and that friction is what makes the return to I at the end feel so secure.

the harmony moves alone

Check

Why is a dominant pedal used just before a cadence?

Sustaining the dominant defers the resolution and accumulates tensionThe dominant does not become dissonant when sustainedA dominant pedal weakens the tonic chordSustaining the dominant prevents the harmony from changing

Check answer

All seven at a glance

That completes the seven non-chord tones. Only two things decide the classification: how the note is approached and how it is left.

Type	Approach	Departure
Passing tone	by step	by step, same direction
Neighbor tone	by step	by step, opposite direction (returns to the original note)
Suspension	held over (prepared)	down by step
Anticipation	by step or leap	does not move; carries into the next chord
Appoggiatura	by leap	by step, opposite direction
Escape tone	by step	by leap, opposite direction
Pedal point	does not move	does not move (the harmony changes instead)

When a classification is unclear, the left two columns settle it almost every time. Metrical position has no bearing on the classification — it only changes how strong the effect is.

▶ Work through all seven in the labeling tool Load each example in turn, then move the middle note up and down. You can watch the boundaries where an appoggiatura becomes a passing tone and a passing tone becomes an escape tone Nonchord Tone Lab →

Every way a melody can depart from the harmony is now on the table. The next lesson approaches from the opposite direction: how to use these tools to write a melody that is actually singable.