music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush

Borrowed Chords how does a composer decide which altered notes to use? in a major key, altered chords use notes outside one possibility is using notes and chords the scale as a means of adding a from the parallel minor. different “color” to the chord.

for example, the following chords are diatonic chords in c minor: w “borrowed”? b w w why call them b w w w w nw that when major & b w w w w w never brings w w7 w 7 them back? c: ii° ii° III iv VI vii°

but if we use them in a major key, they require and are hey, minor! accidentals I’ll have them therefore altered chords. we call these borrowed chords because they back by tuesday are from the this time, I borrowed parallel minor. promise! bw w w bw w & bw bw bbw bw b w Nw some theorists C: wii° ii°w7 III iv VI vii°7 refer to the use b b of these chords as mode mixture. two of these chords, and, in fact, these six chords the “flat three” and “flat six,” are the six most commonly used have altered ntoes as roots. we place a full-sized flat symbol borrowed chords in the common before the roman numeral itself practice period. (One of them, the to indicate this altered root. major triad on the lowered , or “flat three,” was not used much by composers before wait... since we the romantic era.) why? double the root, ˙ ˙ moving both roots & b˙ ˙ all the usual part-writing rules apply to these the same direction 5 chords. for example: can often result in parallel octaves. ? b˙ 8 ˙ b˙ ˙ VI V the borrowed is a b 6 , and is therefore ˙ ˙ it’s more important to ii° always used in . & b˙ ˙ avoid parallelism than to resolve the notes a certain way, so this ? b˙ ˙ use of contrary the borrowed seventh chords 7 b˙ motion is better. can be used in any inversion, but the ˙ ii° VI V seventh must be approached 7 b and resolved properly. vii° the tierce de picardie is a major tonic chord at the end of a minor piece, so many theorists consider it a it’s usually best to resolve altered borrowed chord. really, though, it’s not notes in the direction of their III adding chromatic variety... it’s a last- alteration, but doing so in the two minute modulation! b altered root chords won’t work. VI U b œ œ #œ w b named for & b œ œ œ œ œ œ œ 24th-century ˙œ#œ œ œ œ œ w the leading-tone fully diminished explorer seventh is the king of dominant 7 jean-luc j ‰ j ‰ œ U function. don’t even think of picard!* œ œ œ œ œ œ n w ? b œ œ œ œ œ œ œ resolving it to anything but tonic! vii° b w g: i V7 i VI ii°6 V I *Nope. licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - british adaptation by matthew hindson - visit tobyrush.com for more