The Deceptive Arrival

A major V followed not by the tonic but by the chord on the sixth degree. The reader labels the arrival, not the V: the chord that took the tonic’s place is where the move happens.

The rule, as the reader applies it

  1. In a key whose tonic chord is major: a major chord (a triad or a dominant seventh) a fifth above the tonic, followed by a minor chord a major sixth above the tonic.
  2. In a key whose tonic chord is major: a major chord (a triad or a dominant seventh) a fifth above the tonic, followed by a major chord a minor sixth above the tonic.
  3. In a key whose tonic chord is minor: a major chord (a triad or a dominant seventh) a fifth above the tonic, followed by a major chord a minor sixth above the tonic.

Where it fires: three times in three lines

Every line in this site’s corpus where the deceptive arrival fires: the line, the key it is read in, the chords the move covers and their numerals.
Line Read in Chords Numerals Line from
C F G C C F G Am C major G Am V–vi as printed in The Flat VI-Flat VII-I Cadence (StudyBass)
C F G Am F G C C major G Am V–vi constructed test case
Am Dm E7 F Dm E7 Am A minor E7 F V7–bVI constructed test case

The move as declared here was read from Cadence, “Deceptive cadence” (Wikipedia), which prints it as V7–vi in a major key; V7–bVI in a major key; V7–VI in a minor key (numerals counted from the minor scale).

Spotting it

A major V, as a triad or a dominant seventh, followed not by the tonic but by the chord on the sixth degree. In a major key that chord is the minor vi or the major bVI; in a minor key it is the major chord a minor sixth above the tonic, which this site writes bVI because its numerals are counted from the major scale. The label goes on the arrival, not on the V: the chord standing where the tonic was expected is where the move happens.

In the table

In C F G Am F G C the V lands on vi in the middle of the line and on I at the end, so the move is flagged once, on the Am. C F G C C F G Am ends on the Am after hearing the same approach land on C four chords earlier. Am Dm E7 F Dm E7 Am is in A minor: its E7 is the major V and reaches F the first time and A minor the second, so the deceptive arrival is flagged once, on the F.

The major bVI counts in a major key too. In C F G7 Ab C the G7 goes to Ab, and the Ab row carries two labels: the deceptive arrival, and the flat six, because the Ab is a borrowed chord as well.

A tie can hide it

C F G C C F G Am ties between C major and A minor, since it opens on C and closes on Am. The page reads it in C major by the tie order, and the deceptive arrival is there. Press the A minor button and the line is read again with Am as the tonic: the G is then bVII, not V, the last chord is home, and nothing is deceptive about it.

What is not flagged

A V that goes home, as in C F G C, is not a move at all. Nor is a minor v in a minor key followed by the sixth-degree chord, since the rule asks for a major V.