A Picardy third, (; ) also known as a Picardy cadence or Tierce de Picardie, is a major chord of the tonic at the end of a musical section that is either modal or in a minor key. This is achieved by raising the third of the expected minor triad by a semitone to create a major triad, as a form of resolution. For example, instead of a cadence ending on an A minor chord containing the notes A, C, and E, a Picardy third ending would consist of an A major chord containing the notes A, C, and E. The minor third between the A and C of the A minor chord has become a major third in the Picardy third chord. Philosopher Peter Kivy writes: According to Deryck Cooke, "Western composers, expressing the 'rightness' of happiness by means of a major third, expressed the 'wrongness' of grief by means of the minor third, and for centuries, pieces in a minor key had to have a 'happy ending' – a final major chord (the 'tierce de Picardie') or a bare fifth." As a harmonic device, the Picardy third originated in Western music in the Renaissance era. Illustration What makes this a Picardy cadence is shown by the red natural sign. Instead of the expected B-flat (which would make the chord minor) the accidental gives us a B natural, making the chord major. Listen to the final four measures of "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say" with () and without () Picardy third (harmony by R. Vaughan Williams). History Name The term was first used in 1768 by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, although the device was used in music centuries earlier. Rousseau argues that “the term is used jokingly by musicians”, suggesting it might have never had an academic basis, a tangible origin, and might have sprung out of idiomatic jokes in France in the first half of the 18th century. But his attempt at explaining why this term was used remains unconvincing: “the [practice] remained longer in Church Music, and, consequently, in Picardy, where there is music in a lot of cathedrals and churches”. Robert Hall hypothesizes that, instead of deriving from the Picardy region of France, it comes from the Old French word "picart", meaning "pointed" or "sharp" in northern dialects, and thus refers to the musical sharp that transforms the minor third of the chord into a major