I started playing guitar sort of casually on and off like 10 years ago, but like a year ago I heard some music that I really needed to learn about and after maybe a year or a little more of just copying what I'm hearing now I'm learning what I've been playing. This video is probably the most exciting thing I've learned so far in music theory. I've always heard dominant 7th chords in songs that aren't the fifth chord of the key and never knew why it was being played. Maybe if I was more observant or studied the chords a little harder I would have noticed it but either way this lesson made me like a giddy school boy after reading it haha
Its because we're using D HARMONIC minor rather than D natural minor. In the key of D Harmonic Minor, A7 is the 5 chord, not Am7. Why must we use the harmonic minor rather than the natural minor? I'm not sure, I think he addresses this in a future video though...
Great vid, again. This one cleared a lot of things up for me. I was wondering, however, if you could explain the functions of the other tonicised chords. You only used ii and V in this example, and I was wondering what you could do with the other 3-4 possible chords from tonicization? Or are ii and V the only practical secondary chords for substitutions like this? Would using any other secondary chords not allow for resolution back into the original key, so that they would effectively just be key changes?
Just to clarify your question to make sure I understand it. Are you asking why we only use the relative V (or ii-V) to tonicise a particular chord? If so, then the answer is as follows. The way you (generally) establish a tonic chord is by playing a V-I Cadence/Progression. The V chord feels like it wants to resolve to the I chord, and that's exactly what makes the I chord feel like the tonic (This is because of something called the 'diatonic function' of the chords). So if you want to tonicise a particular chord, the only way you can do this is by playing its relative V before it. This can be extended to playing the relative ii-V (which is a very common Jazz chord progression) or a vii (which is a chord substitution for the V). You cannot use another other secondary chord to tonicise a chord. So for example, in the key of C Major, if you wanted to tonicise the Em7 (iii) chord, you CAN play: CMaj7 | B7 | Em7 but you CAN'T play the IV chord of the Em7 (which is Am7). That is, you CAN'T play: CMaj7 | Am7 | Em7 This second chord progression will not sound like you're establishing the Em7 as a temporary tonic (i.e. it will not tonicise the Em7). You can only tonicise the Em7 by play its relative V or vii. Does that answer your question? If I've misunderstood what you were asking me, please let me know and I'll try answer it again. To really get to grips with why you can only use the relative V chord to tonicise a chord watch my video on: - the diatonic function: ua-cam.com/video/Tloy3wGsJ1o/v-deo.html - tonal vs modal music: ua-cam.com/video/OCkCn0dEgpw/v-deo.html These will clarify what I'm trying to explain here.
great explanation! just have a quick question. when you're explaining the dominant ii-V i don't get why the ii has a flat 5. could you explain the purpose of having the flat 5? thanks!
+tom No worries, Tom. So the chord progression is: CMaj7 | Am7 | Dm7 | G7 | CMaj7 That's in the key of C Major which has the notes: C D E F G A B And the II-V in the Key of C Major is Dm7 (Notes: D F A C) to G7 (Notes: G B D F). This is a known as the Major II-V. You probably know this, but I thought I might just clarify it so that we're on the same page. Now we want to tonicise the Dm7 - which means we want to temporarily change to the key to D minor. This means we cannot use the Major II-V. Instead we have to use the Minor II-V. The Minor II-V uses the notes from the Harmonic Minor Scale (it's actually a little more complex than this, but for the moment, let's just say this is the case. Incidentally, I will be publishing a video about the Minor II-V next week so check that out for more details). The notes in the D harmonic minor scale are: D E F G A Bb C# So the II-V in the Key of D Harmonic Minor is Em7b5 (Notes: E G Bb D) and A7 (A C# E G). This is because the D Harmonic minor does not have the note B (the natural 5th of Em7) but has a Bb (the flat 5th). That is, because we are tonicising a minor chord, we have to play the minor II-V. The minor II-V is derived from the Harmonic Minor Scale. The II Chord derived from the Harmonic Minor Scale has a b5. Does that make sense?
+Walk That Bass yes that makes perfect sense! i was confused because i was thinking the ii chord in the secondary ii-V was D (in the key of C), but it's supposed to be the ii of the note we want to tonicise (which is E if we are tonicising D). thanks for helping me clear that up! :)
Found your channel. I'm an okay pianist but I'm pretty bad at improvising my own music. I don't know much of the theory you are speaking about, I just slowly read sheet music. Jazz also isn't my focus but I'd love to practise some of this. Any videos of yours you recommend I start with?
+Chris Kotra Hi Chris, It really depends what you're after/trying to achieve. The next few lessons I'm currently planning are all about how to improvise, so check them out as I upload them over the next few weeks. But if you want to improve your improvisation, you really need to understand basic music theory, especially 'keys';. That is, how certain chords fit into a single key which then allows you to use a specific scale to improvise over the top. That really is the best place to start. Because without understanding the fundamentals, it's difficult to start embellishing your improvisation. Have a look at my Music Theory; playlist, and specifically the videos about scales, chords and keys. ua-cam.com/play/PLIuyaIoM30LKLdKkbZjLsrsxLXvNm2M3n.html These videos are pretty fast paced so if you don't understand anything, please feel free to ask in a comment and I'll try clarify or elaborate. I've also already got a couple lessons about improvisation up (one about guide tones and one about using the melody) which you can check out. ua-cam.com/video/zuXhDQNohlE/v-deo.html and ua-cam.com/video/5-NgfNAdPok/v-deo.html Otherwise, I'm afraid my jazz videos do already presuppose a certain level of music theory knowledge. Is your goal to improve your improvisation skills? Or to learn a new genre of music? Or just to improve your technical playing?
I've messed around on piano for quite a bit to develop a feel for some scales. I still really suck at coordination and reading and playing music, despite having uploaded videos of some decent piano songs. I'm really slow at learning piano and improving my technical playing would likely speed me up. I see other youtube pianists that can dribble a song on their first attempt and have a really impressive cover done in less than half an hour. Meanwhile I can spend weeks learning songs, jamming my brain with just heaps of muscle memory. It's amazing how much I can store in my head, but I still can't just read/improve and play. (I had lessons for 2 years when I was really young, only learned how to read music).
+Chris Kotra Hi Chris. Well, unfortunately the short answer is that you gotta put the time in and just keep practicing. The more you practice the easier everything becomes and the faster you can pick things up. Though when you are practicing you can separate the different elements you need to improve and focus on each one individually. To improve speed and technique - practice scales, arpeggios, exercises (like Hanon Virtuoso exercises - which my teacher forced me to memorise when I first started learning) and etudes To improve your reading - practice sight reading simple songs (like nursery rhymes and simple grade 1 songs) To improve your improvisation and memory - learn and practice chords. People think and learn in different ways but I personally find that thinking of a song in terms of a chord progression (rather than a series of notes) makes it much simpler for me to understand and memorise. That might work for you too.
augh. look. i'm trying, but i just can't hear the tonicisation of the Dm with the secondary dominant. to my ear, it still needs to resolve through G to C. i tried, and it only starts to properly sound like Dm if i do the AM AFTER the Dm. annoying. i wonder why this is. (mini-edit: somehow the latter secondary dominants sound like they perfectly tonicise the chords. what. why didn't it sound like that for me in the fifths-progression. weird. maybe it's just TOO strong a consonance lol) e: additionally, how do you get a c#dim from d minor. what. the viidim is only in a major scale. i thought we were tonicising the Dm and going onto its 7, which would just be C7...
+Not Legato Hey, Not Legato (Staccato?). You use the C# dim chord to get to the D min because we are using the harmonic minor to tonicise the chord. That's also why we using the A7 rather than the Am7. The C# dim acts kind've like a tritone substitutions of A7, or more accurately acts as an A7b9.
Walk That Bass oh, i didn't realise you could do that. sweet. gonna do some secondary dominants into lydian or something. ...and since you can do a secondary dominant of a ii or whatever, can you also do a secondary dominant off ANY scale degree?
+Not Legato Any scale degree except for the 1 (coz it's already the tonic) and the vii in a major scale (coz it's a half diminished and you can only tonicise major or minor chords).
+jiggareactmilitant It's interchangeable really. I'm going down 5 notes if you include the starting note (A, G, F, E, D). It's called a 'circle of 5ths' because A is the 5th note of DMaj/min. However, the term 'circle of fifths' and 'circle of fourths' is interchangeable. If you say either, people will know what you're talking about.
nope. using the A7 does NOT make it seem that "just for split second" we've changed key. It may have, to a composer from, say, 1800, but not to those of us having lived and breathed dominants in jazz, blues, rock and country all our lives. Not very good theory here.
This is by far the best channel to learn more advanced music theory
I started playing guitar sort of casually on and off like 10 years ago, but like a year ago I heard some music that I really needed to learn about and after maybe a year or a little more of just copying what I'm hearing now I'm learning what I've been playing. This video is probably the most exciting thing I've learned so far in music theory. I've always heard dominant 7th chords in songs that aren't the fifth chord of the key and never knew why it was being played. Maybe if I was more observant or studied the chords a little harder I would have noticed it but either way this lesson made me like a giddy school boy after reading it haha
Very nice explanation!
Super lessons, bro. Thnx
Tonicisation makes the chord progression sound like early jazz. Or maybe it's just the out-of-tune piano ;)
+binoclard24 A bit of both, I suspect :/
3:28 (viewing Dm7 as the tonic) Isn't the dominant Am7. as opposed to A7, because there is no c# in the key of Dm?
Its because we're using D HARMONIC minor rather than D natural minor. In the key of D Harmonic Minor, A7 is the 5 chord, not Am7. Why must we use the harmonic minor rather than the natural minor? I'm not sure, I think he addresses this in a future video though...
Thank you!
Thanks, lana.
Great vid, again. This one cleared a lot of things up for me. I was wondering, however, if you could explain the functions of the other tonicised chords. You only used ii and V in this example, and I was wondering what you could do with the other 3-4 possible chords from tonicization? Or are ii and V the only practical secondary chords for substitutions like this? Would using any other secondary chords not allow for resolution back into the original key, so that they would effectively just be key changes?
Just to clarify your question to make sure I understand it. Are you asking why we only use the relative V (or ii-V) to tonicise a particular chord?
If so, then the answer is as follows. The way you (generally) establish a tonic chord is by playing a V-I Cadence/Progression. The V chord feels like it wants to resolve to the I chord, and that's exactly what makes the I chord feel like the tonic (This is because of something called the 'diatonic function' of the chords). So if you want to tonicise a particular chord, the only way you can do this is by playing its relative V before it. This can be extended to playing the relative ii-V (which is a very common Jazz chord progression) or a vii (which is a chord substitution for the V). You cannot use another other secondary chord to tonicise a chord.
So for example, in the key of C Major, if you wanted to tonicise the Em7 (iii) chord, you CAN play:
CMaj7 | B7 | Em7
but you CAN'T play the IV chord of the Em7 (which is Am7). That is, you CAN'T play:
CMaj7 | Am7 | Em7
This second chord progression will not sound like you're establishing the Em7 as a temporary tonic (i.e. it will not tonicise the Em7). You can only tonicise the Em7 by play its relative V or vii.
Does that answer your question? If I've misunderstood what you were asking me, please let me know and I'll try answer it again.
To really get to grips with why you can only use the relative V chord to tonicise a chord watch my video on:
- the diatonic function: ua-cam.com/video/Tloy3wGsJ1o/v-deo.html
- tonal vs modal music: ua-cam.com/video/OCkCn0dEgpw/v-deo.html
These will clarify what I'm trying to explain here.
That was exactly what I needed. Thank you again. And thank you for providing me even more videos to binge-watch!
Thanks heaps mate
how did you study this? any book or course to recommend?
on the website you wrote that you cannot tonicize a non-diatonic chord, but in the video you mention that you can?
What about tonicizanion with secondary subdominants?? Thnx bro
How abaut a dominant chord resolving up chromaticly, B7 to Cmaj7? It's correct to do this and what examples can we look?
great explanation! just have a quick question. when you're explaining the dominant ii-V i don't get why the ii has a flat 5. could you explain the purpose of having the flat 5? thanks!
+tom No worries, Tom.
So the chord progression is: CMaj7 | Am7 | Dm7 | G7 | CMaj7
That's in the key of C Major which has the notes: C D E F G A B
And the II-V in the Key of C Major is Dm7 (Notes: D F A C) to G7 (Notes: G B D F). This is a known as the Major II-V. You probably know this, but I thought I might just clarify it so that we're on the same page.
Now we want to tonicise the Dm7 - which means we want to temporarily change to the key to D minor. This means we cannot use the Major II-V. Instead we have to use the Minor II-V. The Minor II-V uses the notes from the Harmonic Minor Scale (it's actually a little more complex than this, but for the moment, let's just say this is the case. Incidentally, I will be publishing a video about the Minor II-V next week so check that out for more details).
The notes in the D harmonic minor scale are: D E F G A Bb C#
So the II-V in the Key of D Harmonic Minor is Em7b5 (Notes: E G Bb D) and A7 (A C# E G). This is because the D Harmonic minor does not have the note B (the natural 5th of Em7) but has a Bb (the flat 5th).
That is, because we are tonicising a minor chord, we have to play the minor II-V. The minor II-V is derived from the Harmonic Minor Scale. The II Chord derived from the Harmonic Minor Scale has a b5.
Does that make sense?
+Walk That Bass yes that makes perfect sense! i was confused because i was thinking the ii chord in the secondary ii-V was D (in the key of C), but it's supposed to be the ii of the note we want to tonicise (which is E if we are tonicising D). thanks for helping me clear that up! :)
+tom No worries.
Found your channel. I'm an okay pianist but I'm pretty bad at improvising my own music. I don't know much of the theory you are speaking about, I just slowly read sheet music. Jazz also isn't my focus but I'd love to practise some of this. Any videos of yours you recommend I start with?
+Chris Kotra Hi Chris,
It really depends what you're after/trying to achieve. The next few lessons I'm currently planning are all about how to improvise, so check them out as I upload them over the next few weeks.
But if you want to improve your improvisation, you really need to understand basic music theory, especially 'keys';. That is, how certain chords fit into a single key which then allows you to use a specific scale to improvise over the top. That really is the best place to start. Because without understanding the fundamentals, it's difficult to start embellishing your improvisation.
Have a look at my Music Theory; playlist, and specifically the videos about scales, chords and keys.
ua-cam.com/play/PLIuyaIoM30LKLdKkbZjLsrsxLXvNm2M3n.html
These videos are pretty fast paced so if you don't understand anything, please feel free to ask in a comment and I'll try clarify or elaborate.
I've also already got a couple lessons about improvisation up (one about guide tones and one about using the melody) which you can check out.
ua-cam.com/video/zuXhDQNohlE/v-deo.html
and
ua-cam.com/video/5-NgfNAdPok/v-deo.html
Otherwise, I'm afraid my jazz videos do already presuppose a certain level of music theory knowledge.
Is your goal to improve your improvisation skills? Or to learn a new genre of music? Or just to improve your technical playing?
I've messed around on piano for quite a bit to develop a feel for some scales. I still really suck at coordination and reading and playing music, despite having uploaded videos of some decent piano songs. I'm really slow at learning piano and improving my technical playing would likely speed me up.
I see other youtube pianists that can dribble a song on their first attempt and have a really impressive cover done in less than half an hour. Meanwhile I can spend weeks learning songs, jamming my brain with just heaps of muscle memory. It's amazing how much I can store in my head, but I still can't just read/improve and play. (I had lessons for 2 years when I was really young, only learned how to read music).
+Chris Kotra Hi Chris. Well, unfortunately the short answer is that you gotta put the time in and just keep practicing. The more you practice the easier everything becomes and the faster you can pick things up. Though when you are practicing you can separate the different elements you need to improve and focus on each one individually.
To improve speed and technique - practice scales, arpeggios, exercises (like Hanon Virtuoso exercises - which my teacher forced me to memorise when I first started learning) and etudes
To improve your reading - practice sight reading simple songs (like nursery rhymes and simple grade 1 songs)
To improve your improvisation and memory - learn and practice chords. People think and learn in different ways but I personally find that thinking of a song in terms of a chord progression (rather than a series of notes) makes it much simpler for me to understand and memorise. That might work for you too.
what also sounds nice is when you resole the G7 to Amaj7 (Backdoor resolution) :p
augh. look. i'm trying, but i just can't hear the tonicisation of the Dm with the secondary dominant. to my ear, it still needs to resolve through G to C. i tried, and it only starts to properly sound like Dm if i do the AM AFTER the Dm.
annoying. i wonder why this is. (mini-edit: somehow the latter secondary dominants sound like they perfectly tonicise the chords. what. why didn't it sound like that for me in the fifths-progression. weird. maybe it's just TOO strong a consonance lol)
e: additionally, how do you get a c#dim from d minor. what. the viidim is only in a major scale. i thought we were tonicising the Dm and going onto its 7, which would just be C7...
+Not Legato Your ear is in charge.
Al Brenner well yeah, but it's... supposed to sort of recognise the tonicisation nonetheless. rude ear.
+Not Legato Hey, Not Legato (Staccato?).
You use the C# dim chord to get to the D min because we are using the harmonic minor to tonicise the chord. That's also why we using the A7 rather than the Am7. The C# dim acts kind've like a tritone substitutions of A7, or more accurately acts as an A7b9.
Walk That Bass oh, i didn't realise you could do that. sweet. gonna do some secondary dominants into lydian or something.
...and since you can do a secondary dominant of a ii or whatever, can you also do a secondary dominant off ANY scale degree?
+Not Legato Any scale degree except for the 1 (coz it's already the tonic) and the vii in a major scale (coz it's a half diminished and you can only tonicise major or minor chords).
arent' you going down in fourths?
+jiggareactmilitant It's interchangeable really. I'm going down 5 notes if you include the starting note (A, G, F, E, D). It's called a 'circle of 5ths' because A is the 5th note of DMaj/min. However, the term 'circle of fifths' and 'circle of fourths' is interchangeable. If you say either, people will know what you're talking about.
Please get a tuner in :'(
+shaerens Working on it. Next lesson should (hopefully) be tuned! (Y)
Tonicization should be spelled with a Z according to Google. Just saying because I misspelled it so many times.
Unfortunately, Google tends to rate better if you use American spelling. Thus the z's everywhere.
nope. using the A7 does NOT make it seem that "just for split second" we've changed key. It may have, to a composer from, say, 1800,
but not to those of us having lived and breathed dominants in jazz, blues, rock and country all our lives. Not very good theory here.
are we morons?