bII7 with a major 7 notation?

[heady field]

Just a quick question: I keep seeing this way to resolve from the ii7 to the I by chromatically descending to the bII (maj7) in between. An example if you want to see it in context is Mother 3's "A Letter to You" in the final cadence before it repeats again and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's "Ice Ice Outpost" at the end of the first repetition of the phrase after the intro. Basically I was wondering how I should notate this to imply that its a major 7 since what is assumed with a bII7 is for it to be dominant or a bV7/V. Thanks!

[crimson whale]

Oh hey look it’s the Neapolitan

[heady field]

Lol I love the ice cream too

[mellow brook]

to add a little bit of context and some contrary opinions from a jazzpilled lunatic:

neapolitan chords are major chords built off the bII, and it's perfectly reasonable to label them as 'N' in an analysis (followed by the regular figured bass inversion numbers) like so:

however, by CPP standards, neapolitan chords weren't used in a dominant context generally as in your example--they mostly were used as predominants to lead to the V and then back to i

this is slightly different from the case in your example where we are moving from the bII to the I directly, planing major keys down

therefore i don't know if any kind of roman numeral analysis is really going to do that sort of chord motion justice

so easy answer: label it as neapolitan and move on, hard answer: why is it important to label modern chord progressions in terms of music hundreds of years old

even easier answer: label as bIImaj7

[heady field]

Yea I was thinking it’d just be that but it felt kind of unusual to since I’m mostly used to Classical Roman numeral analysis

[heady field]

Idk I kinda like to think that that kind of small difference does change how a chord feels to hear even if not necessarily changing the function and I’d want to capture it when I analyze it

But I def agree that using the Roman numeral system can be restrictive

For me I sometimes don’t like that I have to think in the context of a specific key or a tonicization of a chord within the key cuz sometimes there’s harmonies that don’t really fit the key center and it can be awkward to try to figure out how they work

But I also really like that it can help give an easier to understand explanation of the functions of chords which done well

And can expand your ideas about how those functions work

Thank you for the answer btw!

[heady field]

I think I’m just going to use this kind of notation from now on when analyzing for myself

[mellow brook]

i think that is extremely reasonable!

[patent crest]

Honestly jazz is just better at notating extended chords. Its somewhat common for them to appear in classical contexts too

[mellow brook]

yeah it's certainly how i think of standards, IVm7 or IIm7b5 or the like