October 11th, 2009 – For those of you who like to get their music theory on, AudioTuts has a great tutorial on the concept of secondary dominant chords, actually specifically dominant 7th chords (it’s usually a 7th chord because they sound more open and ambiguous). Secondary dominants are heard everywhere from classical music to contemporary pop music, but many new songwriters don’t use them.
The dominant chord has a base note as the fifth scale degree of your “target” chord. Because western music has such an ingrained sense of a fifth to tonic cadence, if you use a fifth of a chord other than the tonic, and resolve it, it creates interest and isn’t too weird to the layman’s ear. Because of this feature, the secondary dominant is often used to change keys at climactic sections, like a bridge.
Anyways, check out the AudioTuts article on it. They have a lot of great examples that you can hear. Who knows, it may just be what you need to take your songs to the next level.
AudioTuts : Secondary Dominants and How to Use Them
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