64. Secondary Dominant ⑦ In Practice 3 "Not Resolving on Purpose ②"
Going Deeper into Progression that Don’t Resolve
Previously we looked at how the secondary dominant can resolve to different chords than the usual V→I resolution.
Lets hear how this sounded.
Though the I7 had gone to the IV previously…
V7/IV
C7→Fmaj7
C→F
C7→F
It’s going to a different chord as shown by the green arrows.
Though it doesn’t resolve, the key point here is that it doesn’t sound unnatural.
Lets listen to a number of examples of this.
All examples will be in the key of C.
Examples of Cadences that Don’t Resolve
The idea here is that the E7 is placed before the chorus.
It starts with the I/Am of C major’s relative key, A minor.
In this example, the E7 comes before the chorus as well.
After hearing the example with the Am/Am7 followed by the E7, you may have been expecting a minor feel but we deceptively changed it to the Fmaj7 to get a more common cadence.
Related Articles
Utilizing Degree Names (Part 2) / Music Theory Lesson
There are common chord progression that are used in hit songs, and these chord progression themselves are not bound by any copyright law. There are plenty of chord progressions made up of easy diatonic chords so we will be taking a look at some in this article.
Using Degree Names (4 note chords) (Part 2) / Music Theory Lesson
We will be looking at how to use degree names of 4 note chords in continuation of our previous article. In this article we will be starting with key changes as well. By using degree names, you can easily change between keys.
Next lets take a look at using the dominant to dominant progression.
First, the D7 will go to the G.
Next, lets have a D7 go to F.
We have concluded with a II-V-I cadence.
We can decieve the listener into thinking a G or G7 would come next.
Next, we will look at the I7 as seen in our previous article.
First we will have it resolve normally to the IV F major.
Next we will try going from the C7 to the Bm7b5 as analyzed in our last article.
We connect to a minor II-V-I, giving it the sense that “it’s been a minor song all along”.
Though we had mentioned the need to resolve the secondary dominant in previous articles, as seen above, we can still get a natural sound without resolving the chord to the I.
Of course dominant chords from relative keys can be borrored, as well as dominant keys, and subdominant keys, so try these out as well.
If you find a secondary dominant chord that doesn’t resolve when analyzing music, be sure to add it to your arsenal of cadences.
