Augmented triad

Examples of popular music songs featuring the augmented chord include its use in the introduction of Chuck Berry's "School Days", Aaron Neville's "Tell It Like It Is", The Beatles' "Oh!

Darling", after intros in Gene Pitney's "Town Without Pity", The Beach Boys' "The Warmth of the Sun", Joe Cocker's "Delta Lady", at the end of the bridge in Patience and Prudence's "Tonight You Belong to Me", The Caravelles' "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry", The Beatles' "From Me to You", The Dave Clark Five's "Glad All Over", and Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street".

An augmented chord also harmonizes the opening downbeat of the chorus of the 1908 song "Shine On, Harvest Moon", heard at the beginning of the 1931 recording by Ruth Etting.

[5]Other examples of the augmented chord include its use as a chromatic passing function over the first degree, the rising to ♯ then harmonized as IV, as in Jay and the Americans' "Some Enchanted Evening", Lesley Gore's "It's My Party" (I – I+ – IV – iv) (see also minor major seventh chord), Herman's Hermits' "There's a Kind of Hush" (continues to ♭7 harmonized by Im7), by ii Roy Orbison's "Crying", followed by 6 – ♭6 – 5 motion in "Crying", The Guess Who's "Laughing", Dave Clark Five's "Because" (verse: I – I+ – vi – Im7... ii and cadence on V+), The Monkees' "Tapioca Tundra" (I – I+ – vi, and V+ after bridge).

However it comes into more striking prominence in the 6-bar sequential passage starting on the first beat of bar 5 (D-F♯–A♯): According to Aubyn Raymar, in this minuet “flowing counterpoints woven among closely crowded chromaticisms and richly variegated harmony, sequential progressions in either direction coupled with unexpected dissonance… - such resources used with a mastery of concentration intensify the emotion which stirs within the brooding phrases of a perfectly balanced poem.” [7]

See the "surprising" [8] first chord (D–F♯–B♭) in the opening chorus to his cantata Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, BWV 2: .

This kind of organization is common; in addition to Schubert, it is found in music of Franz Liszt, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Louis Vierne and Richard Wagner, among others.

The striking sound of the augmented triad lends itself to effective word painting, especially when conveying strong emotion.

Bach’s Magnificat, the composer sets the words “dispersit superbos mente cordis sui” (He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts) with a powerful chord sequence starting with an augmented triad (F♯–A♯-D) on the word “mente.” The passage is made all the more effective by being inititated by a sudden tempo change and a beat’s silence.

This gives the chord considerable dramatic clout: In the opening scene of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, one of the three Norns conveys her dread and uncertainty about what is going to pass.