Secondary dominant off the iii

Axe_meister · September 2020

Doing a paper exercise involving modes and secondary dominants.
I have a Chord sequence that goes from C to Em.
Now I want to lead into the Em with a secondary dominant. So that would either be Bm or Bdim if I wanted to stay in key.
So question 1) In what circumstances would you go for the diminished? Jazz? In which case to solo over it I'd be forced to use B Locrian (C Major)
Question 2) If I went "out of key" with the Bm what would you major mode choice be? Dorian, Phygian or Aolian? Again in which circumstances would you choose which mode?

Brad · September 2020

You want B7, not Bm or Bdim as neither of those are secondary dominants.

Axe_meister · September 2020

I was following a Paul Davies video,where you take the 5th of a chord you're moving to as a lead in. If your are going to a minor chord the lead in with generally be minor. Wanted to do this exercise with simple triads first before venturing into 7ths and beyond

Brad · September 2020

Axe_meister said:

I was following a Paul Davies video,where you take the 5th of a chord you're moving to as a lead in. If your are going to a minor chord the lead in with generally be minor. Wanted to do this exercise with simple triads first before venturing into 7ths and beyond

Hmmm I’ll have to check that vid to see what he’s getting at. A secondary dominant is exactly that - a dominant chord that doesn’t belong to the key.

stratman3142 · September 2020

I thought secondary dominants were major chords or dominant 7th chords. So in the above example the secondary dominant would be B or B7.

If you played Bdim then that would just be staying in the key of C.

Bm has an F# so that would be straying out of the key of C. Although, then the chords would fit in the key of G.

However, others may know more than me so I'm happy to stand corrected and learn something.

edit I see @Brad answered just before me and he's someone that knows more about this stuff than me.

viz · September 2020

If you’re using a secondary dominant, you play B or B7 before the Em. I mean, you can of course play whatever you like - Bm or whatever - but the whole point of calling something a secondary dominant is that you treat it as a proper, temporary, dominant chord. So B or B7. So it’s like a V-i cadence.

On the other hand, if you’re just moving to the vi chord in the normal fashion, and you’re in C major, then it’s i-vii(dim)-iii.

——————————

Actually these 3 chords point to you being far more likely to be in E minor, not in C major, to start with, in which case the chords are actually vi-v-i, or v-V(7)-i.

Again the Bm or the B(7) both work, but the tonal centre is E. I suspect this is the case in your progression. Apols if I’m wrong.

Anyway, your question; in the case that you ARE in E and you’re not playing the B(7) as a dominant chord, but instead playing a minor B, should you play diminished or not? This depends on the mode of the piece - ie are you in E Aeolian, Dorian or Phrygian?

You can’t be in Dorian because there isn’t a C chord in E Dorian.

If you’re wanting to play in E Aeolian, then your B minor should be a phrygian scale - BUT you don’t actually think OH OK I’M PLAYING B PHRYGIAN NOW, you just stay in key (Em) but play over the B minor chord.

If you’re playing in E phrygian, then you would play B diminished, because you’d be wanting to stay consistent with E phrygian’s flattened 2nd - the F. But that is rare.

Most likely of all, you’d want your B to be a dominant chord, with a major 3rd, so you’d be playing Yngwie’s fave scale, phrygian dominant. Same as phrygian but with a major 3rd, to make the B a dominant. Again, unless you were Yngwie, you wouldn’t be saying “ok now I’m playing phrygian dominant”, you’d just play over B7, but with a flat 2. Incidentally you’d be using the notes from E Harmonic Minor.

Or in your melody you could play a normal 2, using the notes from E MELODIC MINOR.

Finally, earlier I said it couldn’t be E dorian as there isn’t a C chord in E dorian. But of course you can play whatever you like, so over the Bm (that is, if you choose to keep it minor) you can just play A aeolian. that’s what you’d play in E dorian. It might sound a bit funny having just played the C chord, but a bit funny is good.

viz · September 2020

Stratman got there first

stratman3142 · September 2020

viz said:

Stratman got there first

No. @Brad just pipped me to the post

Axe_meister · September 2020

It was all about spicing up a chord progression as you are setting up a chord resolution going into a chord.

viz · September 2020

stratman3142 said:

viz said:

Stratman got there first

No. @Brad just pipped me to the post

Oh yes lol

viz · September 2020

Axe_meister said:

It was all about spicing up a chord progression as you are setting up a chord resolution going into a chord.

Sure, but you’re not spicing it up if you just play Bdim or Bm - you’re just staying true to the one of the diatonic progressions available.

If you really want to spice it up, play B super locrian, which would be B C D Eb F G A B.

Brad · September 2020

viz said:

Axe_meister said:

It was all about spicing up a chord progression as you are setting up a chord resolution going into a chord.

Sure, but you’re not spicing it up if you just play Bdim or Bm - you’re just staying true to the one of the diatonic progressions available.

If you really want to spice it up, play B super locrian, which would be B C D Eb F G A B.

And make that B7 some sort of B7altered chord. Spicy!

Brad · September 2020

@stratman3142 no not at all, and don’t do yourself down man!

@Axe_meister if you can share the vid I’d be interested to know what he’s actually saying and if it’s a case that you’ve maybe misunderstood what has been said, or you’re hearing (IMO) some duff information.

Axe_meister · September 2020

The Chord sequence is Actually C Em G C.
So I wanted to spice up the C to Em change.
My thinking of possible scale over each chord is
What are the Major Modes against a Major chord.
What are the Minor modes over a minor chord.
Yes I could just stay in the C Major scale but that would be a bit boring,

stratman3142 · September 2020

You might find the video below helpful. From about 8:00 he talks about using a ii V to get to the next chord, but I guess just using the V (i.e. the secondary dominant) can be considered as a shorter version of that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr_YuJQ_T88

Brad · September 2020

Axe_meister said:

The Chord sequence is Actually C Em G C.
So I wanted to spice up the C to Em change.
My thinking of possible scale over each chord is
What are the Major Modes against a Major chord.
What are the Minor modes over a minor chord.
Yes I could just stay in the C Major scale but that would be a bit boring,

As @viz said, try B Phrygian Dom (I personally prefer call it Phrygian Maj but they’re interchangeable) into the Em. Do it, even if you don’t actually use a B7 as it’s a strong sound due to the leading notes.

You could try G Altered (mode vii of A melodic minor) or G half/whole diminished to get back to C.

Obviously phrasing is the most important thing here so be careful where you use these sounds. Sometimes it can be really easy to get lost in the options.

Axe_meister · September 2020

Didn't quite want to go that advanced, as I said a paper exercise on modes of the major scale and spacing up a chord progression.

Brad · September 2020

@Axe_meister ok, that’s cool. So just to touch on you wanting to start with a basic approach, and I think you’re right to do so.

Again try this, preced any minor triad via its major V triad. So in the key of C...

A to Dm
B to Em
E to Am

Axe_meister · September 2020

So If I going C to B to Em, setting up an improve solo behind it, obviously the C Major would not work well over B unless I avoid the diminished notes.
If I treat each chord as it's own key centre I have the following options (thinking CAGED)
C Major
C Lydian --> G Major
C Mixolydian --> F Major

Likewise over the B
B Major
B Lydian --> F# Major
B Mixolydian -> D# Major

Over the Em
Em Dorian --> D Major
Em Phrygian --> C Major
Em Aolian --> F# Major

These are the obvious choices ,obviously targeting the chord tones

viz · September 2020

You’re probably gonna want to avoid B lydian or major

Axe_meister · September 2020

viz said:

You’re probably gonna want to avoid B lydian or major

That's because they have a major 7 rather than dominant 7 hence it would not be a secondary dominant right?

viz · September 2020

Yes. The V chord can only satisfactorily have a major 7th if you’re playing in Lydian. So Bmaj7 - E Lydian would be ok.

Also try avoid thinking in scales. Even try not to think in terms of the palette of notes “allowed” in each chord. Try instead to think of beautiful tunes!

Axe_meister · September 2020

So in a classic rock context what would be a natural flow of scale choices?
C Mix to B mix to E Dorian?

So southern rock to minor blues and back to southern Rock.

In a Statch like context C Lydian B Mix to E Phrygian?

viz · September 2020

Axe_meister said:

So in a classic rock context what would be a natural flow of scale choices?
C Mix to B mix to E Dorian?

So southern rock to minor blues and back to southern Rock.

In a Statch like context C Lydian B Mix to E Phrygian?

Yep. The Satch one’s a little odd but why not? Jeff’sngroovy drumming will make it sound ok

Axe_meister · September 2020

Are they any guides of what modes generally sound good together when following chords, in different genres?

viz · September 2020

Yep - will write some stuff about it later if someone else doesn’t first

Axe_meister · September 2020

Obviously in a blues rock context Mixolydian and Dorian sound good together as they are essentially major and minor pentatonic

Brad · September 2020

Axe_meister said:

So in a classic rock context what would be a natural flow of scale choices?
C Mix to B mix to E Dorian?

So southern rock to minor blues and back to southern Rock.

In a Statch like context C Lydian B Mix to E Phrygian?

Go for it, but I’d be careful here. Just because you could theoretically do something, doesn’t mean you should or that it’ll sound good.

Are you just dealing with triads or are any of the chords being extended? What is the tempo/how many bars are you on each chord etc? This info can really help determine your choices as those three chords together create a strong sound that our ear expects to be treated in a certain way.

Obviously feel free to go against that! If the phrasing is right, it can be really cool hitting something we don’t expect but sometimes the best option is the obvious one.

Axe_meister · September 2020

At the moment I am only looking at triads. Obviously extending the chords narrows you choice down. I'm going to turn this into a practice piece, two bars on C, one bar on B, two bars on Em and then back to C.

Cranky · September 2020

So why not a D7, like a chromatic walk up from C to Em? It sort of has the added benefit of being a borrowed chord plus being the dominant of the primary key's V chord (leading into its relative minor), so that's a common key change strategy also. Or is that not as spicy as what we want?

GuyBoden · September 2020

A simple progression would be:

CMaj = CEG

Emin = EGB

Bdim = BDF

The B and F notes in Bdim will resolve nicely to the C and E notes in the CMaj chord, because they are a semi-tone apart.

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Secondary dominant off the iii

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