If you Google secondary dominants and look at the Wikipedia page that comes up,
the definition is confusing.
There's a lot of technical terms and it doesn't really seem to get to the main point.
Which is a shame, because secondary dominants are a really useful tool in your harmonic toolkit.
They can give your music a feeling of lift and forward momentum
and make your writing more colorful and sophisticated sounding.
They're one of the first steps people usually
take when they're ready to get beyond regular diatonic harmony.
So in this video I'm going to show you that secondary dominants can be easy to understand
and how to use them in your own music.
So let's go!
Hey guys, I'm Ryan and welcome to my channel.
I'm a composer for film, TV,
and media and I love to figure out and talk about the way that music works.
In this video I'll talk about what secondary dominants are,
how you come up with them, and we'll listen to examples from real music.
If you feel pretty comfortable with basic diatonic harmony, you understand what I
mean if I say something like "the V chord in D major," then you should be good here.
If what I just said doesn't really make any sense then maybe go brush
up on your basic harmony and come back here.
Things will make a lot more sense.
So before we talk about what a secondary dominant is let's review what a dominant is,
which is basically the V chord in your key.
If you're in the key of C major you have C as your I chord, or your tonic.
You go to G, which is the V and you can go back to I.
That I-V-I is a tonic dominant tonic progression.
So a secondary dominant is a dominant chord that has a secondary role.
It goes to any chord other than your I chord, other than your tonic.
It could be to II it could be to bIII.
As long as you're not going to I we're going to consider it a secondary dominant.
So think of your tonic as like the center of a solar system.
Your I chord is the star or the sun right in the middle and it has very strong gravity.
All these planets going around it are these other chords that pull into that gravity.
Some chords have a stronger pull, some a weaker pull,
but they all orbit around that I chord which is home.
But if you zoom in on one of those planets it has its own center of gravity.
It has moons circling around it.
So in the same way, a chord from in your key can also have its own
center of gravity and other chords can want to gravitate to that chord.
So if your key is C major and one of your chords is Dm orbiting around it,
we can zoom in on that planet, that Dm.
We can get the V chord, so in this case it's A7.
So A7 to Dm is a V-I progression on that planet gravity level.
And we can take that unit, zoom back out to the solar system,
and use that V-I from the planet level gravity in the context of the whole solar system.
So for example if we have the chord progression C-Dm-G-C.
So we can take that II chord, the Dm.
Remember that it has its own gravity, and take its own vV chord to resolve to it.
So we could have C-A7-Dm-G-C.
Hear how the A7 has this gravitational pull into the Dm.
That C# from the A7 really wants to lead in to the D, it has very strong upward movement.
And part of the way that secondary dominants work is that they kind of make sense
after you hear them, after they resolve.
So when it first appears it's this bright fresh new color,
and then when it resolves to its tonic afterwards it makes sense.
You're like "Oh okay, now I understand where this random A7 came from."
It's a chord that's kind of surprising when it first appears and then explains itself afterwards.
So because the secondary dominant is the V
chord of whatever key it's coming from, we call it the "V of whatever."
So the "V of II" or the "V of V".
And that's usually written as a V slash target.
So I think this will all start to make a lot more
sense as we go through and listen to some real musical examples.
We'll go through the secondary dominant of every diatonic chord, except for the diminished seven,
and by the end of it I think you should be getting the hang of it.
So for the first example of a V of II let's listen to
Kakariko Village from the Legend of Zelda series.
So the secondary dominant is happening here on this G to the Cm, measures 12 to 13.
Cm is the II chord in Bb.
So if we go into the key of C minor we think, "What is the V chord here? The V chord to C is G."
So we're using that C as the gravitational pull and the V
chord pulling into that Cm and putting it into the context of Bb.
And then he just proceeds to go on with diatonic harmony from there.
So what the G does really nicely here is kind of
pulls us into that Cm at the end, which gives us this forward momentum towards his final cadence.
It also does a nice job of accenting the minor quality of that Cm, which I
think gives it a whimsical touch at the end there.
So what we have at the very end is [music].
Also notice because of the B natural in the G minor we get this rising chromatic line.
And you'll find that a lot with these secondary
dominants is you can end up with a very nice chromatic line between your chords.
So the next example of V of II comes from Maxwell's Silver Hammer.
So in the key of D the II chord is E minor.
The V chord in E minor is B, or B7.
So the progression we're pulling out is that B7 to Em, and we're putting in the context of D major.
If you tried to use the Bm here, which is the VI of the key,
it wouldn't really work because you have that C natural in the melody
and that would create a b9 over a minor chord, which is just kind of a nasty sound.
But by putting it under a dominant chord you get this dominant b9,
which is more of kind of an edgy altered sound.
So the Eb9 on the minor versus the Eb9 on the dominant seven...
And then that C natural goes nicely down into the B of the Em chord
and the D# of the B7 goes nicely up.
So we get that.
So there's this really big tension in beat 4 of that chord that resolves nicely into the Em.
Again that whole thing has this kind of forward lift into measure three.
Now let's take a look at an example of the V of III.
I was able to find one in Bohemian Rhapsody.
I apologize for how the MIDI just does not live up to the Queen recording
but I don't want to get a copyright takedown notice!
So we're in the key of Eb.
The III chord is Gm and in the world of G minor the gravity the V chord is D or d7.
So we're going to pull that out of G minor put it into Eb.
On its own if we just do Eb-D-Gm we would get [music].
Which if we just stop there actually feels very conclusive,
because the Eb is the bVI chord of G minor.
It does kind of make the gravity seem like it was inevitable towards G minor.
It's only when we keep going that we feel like we're still in Eb.
So let's take a listen to that.
So what I think the secondary dominant is really doing for us there, by pulling us
into the Gm, is taking us out of the pattern and the busyness of everything that's come before it.
This is very much near the end of this crazy solo.
It's been huge, high energy.
We're trying to reach a point where we calm down, and that D
pulling us into the Gm as a settling down point I think really helps do that.
Also as a bonus we got that V of II when we have the G7
over B going to the Cm in measures four and five.
So the V of IV is an interesting one because it's the only of the main diatonic
secondary dominant chords that uses a flat instead of a sharp.
All the other secondary dominants have this very lifting sharp forward quality.
The V of IV kind of has the opposite.
It has a very downward settling quality.
So here in the key of Bb the IV chord is Eb and the V of Eb is Bb,
which can be a little confusing.
The only way to really make it work is to make sure you're doing Bb7, because it's that seventh
that's going to sound different to our ear and actually pull that gravity into the IV chord.
So we have the I - V of IV going to the IV chord.
So let's take a listen to Let's Go Fly a Kite.
Notice how he uses that Bb7 as a turn around chord
at the cadence to bring us back to the beginning of the phrase.
It's kind of unusual to use the IV chord at the start of your phrase.
So here they're using that V o IV as a way to still give us that dominant to tonic kind of
relationship, kind of feeling, from the end of the phrase into the beginning of the next one.
So again it's really important to notice here how the Ab in that Bb7
chord descends down into the G, into the third of the Eb chord.
We get that.
On its own out of context it feels like we're in the key of Eb.
It's only with everything else going around it that shows us where the real gravity is.
So the next example of a V of IV is from Hare Hare Yukai from an anime.
If you ever listen to any anime music you'll know
that secondary dominants are like a feature of that style.
They are constantly using these secondary dominants to pull you
to different places throughout the tune.
I don't know why that is exactly, it might be because those songs are so high energy
and the secondary dominants kind of keep pulling you forward to different places.
But it is definitely a characteristic sound of that style.
So a few things to notice before we listen to this.
We do have that V of IV happening with the A7 to Dm.
And then at the end of bar four into bar five we have the V of IV, the F7 going into the Bb.
And as a bonus thing,
each of those secondary dominants also brought the II chord with it as well.
So in D minor a II-V-I is Em-A7-Dm. In Bb the II-V-I is Cm-F7-Bb.
So instead of just bringing in that V chord they brought the whole II-V-I progression with them.
So let's take a listen.
So this harmonization is full of chromatic tones and borrowed chords from different keys,
but notice when they're used.
It's always in a point of motion in the phrase.
The beginning of the phrase is actually always a solid diatonic chord.
So the first two bar phrase, we start on the F.
The next two bar phrase we start on the Dm.
The last phrase is four bars long and we start on that Bb.
So the F, Dm and Bb all make perfect sense in the key of F.
They're pretty stable points for us to know where our ground is.
And all those secondary dominants and more colorful chords are happening
when we want some motion, when we want to pull forward into the next phrase.
So the next one we have is the V of V,
which is probably the most common of the secondary dominants.
Here we have the Fire Emblem theme which is in the key of F.
So the V chord in F is C.
The V chord in C is G.
We keep moving backwards.
So here we're going to be looking for a G
to C to F progression, which is what we have in measures three, four and five.
So let's take a listen.
Something interesting about this theme is what's happening in bar 7 with that Gm7 to G7.
We're getting the actual II chord in the key of F followed by that altered chord,
that secondary dominant to the V chord.
So we're ending up with,
again, another one of those chromatic lines happening.
Another example of the V of V comes in the B section to Love me Tender.
So we're in the key of G and the V chord is D.
If we go into the world of D and the gravity around it, it's an A7 to D.
So we pull that back out and put it into context and we'll get the A7 to D7 to G.
So let's take a listen and then we'll look at a few other things that he's doing here.
So this is kind of a packed example as far as secondary dominants are concerned.
Right in bar one we have that V of IV, and then in bar two we get the V of IV.
And then, as this kind of extra thing, he's chained
the secondary dominants in that whole last phrase.
So if we want to end on G we back up the V chord behind it is D.
We back up behind that is A.
But he actually backs up a step further and we get this whole chain.
The E7 to the A7 to the D7 to the G.
So there's this kind of tumbling down, constant forward motion to get us to the end.
I think this works especially well for the ending of the song because
we're getting this forward motion to kind of bring us home, bring us to the end.
And all these secondary dominants are kind of pulling us towards that eventual goal.
OK so the last one I have is a V of VI and we'll look at A Whole New World.
So in the key of Eb the VI chord is Cm.
In the world of Cm, like we saw in another piece, G7 is the V chord.
So we're looking for that G7 to Cm, which we have in measures five and six.
I think what's interesting about how it's placed here
is it's another one of those points of forward motion.
The theme starts with a two bar phrase that mostly sits around the Eb.
That phrase is repeated with some slight variations.
It's not until bar five that we get this continuation and we start to
roll on forward towards the cadence.
This is the point where we want some energy, we want some forward motion,
and we want to kind of drive the theme to the end.
So that's where he's using that secondary dominant.
That G7 is pulling us into the Cm and giving us that motion.
So those are all examples of secondary dominants to each diatonic chord.
I think I should mention that that Bohemian
Rhapsody was the only example I could find of a V of III.
If you can find another example of V of III I'd love for you to
leave it in the comments so we can take a listen.
The main thing to remember is the idea of the center of gravity,
that you can zoom in on a chord and think about "If this was the center of gravity
what is the V chord? What chords are pulling me in towards this?"
Then take that unit, zoom out and put it into the context of your whole overall key.
And remember that you can have these moments
of relative gravity that makes sense as the piece moves along.
So when that secondary dominant first appears, and it's kind of this surprising chromatic color,
it will explain itself when it properly resolves into the next chord.
If you'd like to see more harmony videos like this one please let
me know in the comments what you're looking for.
Don't forget to like and subscribe and I'll see you in the next one!