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What do you call a Minor chord on the flatted second? A Neapolitan minor?? Chord progession is A#minor, Fminor, Cmajor, Aminor :|| are the chords like this? f minor key iv, i, III, biv
or C major key #vi, iv, I, vi

the A#minor is a a half step up from Aminor. Is this progression considered to be in the key of A minor harmonic? If it is what do i call the A#minor? a neapolitan minor?

or is this in the key of A#minor or Fminor. I thought it might be Fminor, Cmajor being the III, then Aminor would be a minor built on a flatted 2.

The issue is, when i research the terms, flat 2 minor, i get nothing related to this, and when i search sharp 6 minor, all i get is Neapolitan and Inverted chords referencing the old school 6/4 notations.

I just want to know what to call a minor chord built on the flattened second degree ie: A neapolitan chord is a Major chord built on a flatted second scale degree.

A ________ chord is a Minor chord built on a flatted second scale degree

can someone fill in the blank?

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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – Doktor Mayhem ♦
    Sep 4, 2017 at 19:15
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    In your chord progression, if you rename A# minor more sensibly as Bb minor, you just have a circle of 5ths leading up to the C major, chord but using minor chords. Big deal - why does that need a "special name?" Neapolitan chords do not have the same harmonic function as this at all - arguably, they have a function that is unique to themselves - and in this analysis, the Bb minor chord has no connection with the key of A minor at all.
    – user19146
    Sep 5, 2017 at 0:26

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It doesn't have a name outside the typical naming scheme of scale degrees. Just call it a minor chord built on a lowered supertonic, but this isn't relevant to this analysis as there is more going on (it's not just a ♭ii).

A Neapolitan chord serves a very specific function and just having a chord on the lowered second scale degree does not make a Neapolitan chord. The distinction is also not made for Neapolitan as major or minor since the chord's function dictates what it is (Like the flavors of Augmented 6th chords German, Italian, and French) and due to the nature of the chord you'll almost never see it function outside of 1st inversion. Most of the time when you see a chord build on that degree in modern usage, it is a tritone substitution or modal borrowing (specially from Phrygian mode) so calling every chord built on that lowered scale degree Neapolitan is not productive.

This progression is heavily reliant on the circle of 4ths/5ths. If you look at the progression as B♭m - Fm - C - Am, you'll notice the first 3 chords follow by falling 4ths. The first 2 can be viewed as borrowed from F minor if you really want to make the case, but the circle progression in general is very strong and doesn't need a more in depth analysis.

Don't make up terms to describe things. It leads to more confusion as people already have many different names for things in music.

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