Step by Step Song Writing Guide
(20 Aug 03)
Momentary Key Changes Using Secondary Dominant Chords
Secondary Dominant Chords - You can place a dominant chord in front of most of the diatonic chords in the key you're working in. It just creates a momentary key change. The secondary dominant chord is just the V chord of one of the diatonic chords in question.
The only diatonic chords that do not have secondary dominants are the I and viio chord. The reasons are simple: the I chord already has its own dominant chord, the V chord of the key you are in, and the viio chord being neither major or minor does not have a key (never heard of the key of B diminished have you?) so it doesn't get its own V chord.
When I first started studying theory I found it difficult to locate the secondary dominants so I did it this way: I just thought of the fifth string root of the diatonic chord and then mentally located the note on the same fret on the sixth string. That note is the root of the secondary dominant chord. Ex: the ii chord is Dmin, D is on the fifth string fifth fret, the fifth fret note on the sixth string is A so A7 is the V/ii chord.
Try to become familiar with the chart below:
Harmonization 3 - I took our song and reharmonized it using secondary dominant chords where the melody permits.
Jazz - Secondary dominants are used in just about all styles of music, from the Baroque period to Blues and Jazz. Jazz musicians also tend to stick, not only the V, but both the ii and V before the the chord being led up to. For example, in the previous harmonization you might put a Bmin7 before the E7 chord and a Gmin7 before the C7.
The Star Spangled Banner - Just being patriotic here. Check out how secondary dominant chords are used in the American anthem. This is actually the song the professor at my local community college used to explain secondary dominant chords. This actually is a good song for simple analysis, all the melody notes are chord tones.
Key of G Test - See if you can fill in the appropriate chords in the graph below. Answers at the bottom:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song writing time - If you are ready, see if you can come up with a simple song using the tricks we've learned so far. Don't worry, this page will be right here waiting for you.......
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Borrowed chords
Borrowing from the minor scale - To expand our chord choices, we can borrow from the diatonic chords of the minor scale. First we will have to figure out the diatonic chords of the minor scale. To save you the work, I did it for you. Before you go on, make sure you understand what I did. Make yourself familiar with the chart below. Take special notice of the III, VI and VII chord.
If this is getting difficult to understand read this explanation very slowly: the III, VI and VII chord in the chart above all have flats as names. The iii, vi and viio chords from the major scale are all built on natural pitches and because of this, when we export the three chords from the C minor scale to C major we have to notate them with flats: the iii chord in C major is Emin while the III chord in C minor is Ebmaj thus notated bIII. The i chord does not get borrowed as it would simply change the key to its minor counterpoint. The most common borrowed chords are the bIII, iv, bVI and bVII chords.
Try making up some chord progressions using some of the borrowed chords. The following chord progressions are just a few that I came up with for you to try out. The borrowed chords in red:
Harmonization 4 - Once again I took our song and reharmonized it using secondary dominant and Borrowed chords. I took the liberty of flating the e note in the third measure so I could use the borrowed Ab chord. When you are writing, feel free to change the melody as needed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song writing time again - Take some time and see what kind of song you can come up with. Take your time......
|
