Secondary Dominants
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1music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush
Secondary Dominants
there is a duality at the heart of common
that duality, of course, is the relationship
of dominant function and tonic.
practice period harmonic progression.
like the ancient conflict of jedi and
dominant harmony typifies tension
sith, it consists of forces that,
in the common practice period, and
V
at one level, work against each
the tonic represents release.
its simplest form, the authentic
other... but at another, higher
level, work together, creating
cadence, has been ubiquitous
energy that drives all else.
in western music for centuries.
but that’s crazy talk, though,
the progression of dominant
moving to tonic is so strong, it
I
isn’t it? I mean, how could we
control that magic and make it
would be nice to be able to use
obey our compositional whim?
it to provide motion to chords
other than tonic.
the answer, of course, is with secondary dominants.
let’s say we wanted to
what if we wanted to use
˙ ˙ ˙
˙ ˙ ˙
we could use one of the usual
approach this vi chord.
that dominant-tonic magic?
&
&
diatonic chords, the tonic, the
?
?
subdominant, the mediant... but
what if we’re looking for a bit
more tension and release?
vi
vi
if we pretend for a moment that the chord we’re resolving to is a tonic chord, what would
˙ ˙ ˙
˙ ˙ ˙
˙ ˙ ˙
the corresponding dominant chord be? altered, yes, but we’re not afraid of those anymore:
˙ ˙ ˙ #
˙ ˙ ˙ #
˙ ˙ ˙ #
&
&
&
V
V
a
vi
a:
V
i
C:
a
vi
while we might have once called this a
now, we’re not just limited to the v chord:
short modulation, it is really more like
there are five chords with a dominant function!
borrowing another key’s dominant chord.
7
7
7
if we think of the V chord in the key
V
V
vii°
vii°
vii°
as the primary dominant, V chords of
related keys are secondary dominants.
dominant function chords
that gives us
7
7
7
V
V
vii°
vii°
vii°
a huge list of
possibilities!
x
x
x
x
x
the secondary dominants
these chords often resolve to the
in major keys, the “x” above can be any
chord “under the slash,” but they can
diatonic chord other than tonic (obviously)
actually be approached and resolved
or the leading-tone triad . why? because
using the basic root movements!
a diminished triad has a hard time acting
like a temporary tonic chord .
the basic
2
root movements
3
rock!
1
in minor keys, the composers generally
only used secondary dominants
5
yes. yes they do.
of iv and of V.
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