15c Lesson - Irregular Usage of Secondary Chords

Class discussion

Harmonizing consecutive seventh chords

• We have some weird voice leading happening between the first and second chords
  • This is how we wet up a seventh chord sequence, where instead of thirds resolving upward to the root of the next they remain static, become sevenths, and then resolve down to the third of the chord after that.
• All you have to do to turn ii7 into a V7/V is raise the third, then add a natural to the F in the G7 after that. This looks weird on paper and sucks to sight read, but for the purposes of harmonic analysis we write it this way.

Consecutive secondary dominant chords

• It’s that fancy thirds to sevenths through static motion thing again!!
• Sequences of consecutive secondary dominants can work well if you know what you’re doing! Don’t try and do this with secondary leading tone chords though, that can get really messy really quickly because voice leading for one on its own is already a nightmare. When in doubt, remember to keep it simple

Secondary dominants and their related chords

• V/V and ii
• V/ii and vi
• V/vi and iii
• For all of these, you identify them by listening to/noting the quality of the chord. Secondary dominants are always going to be major, while all their counterparts listed above (aka normalsauce variants) will be minor

Deceptive resolutions of secondary dominant functions

• V7/vi should resolve to vi, but we have it going to IV instead which is weird
  • It’s a deceptive progression!! V7/vi - IV is V - VI in C’s relative minor, A minor
• To ID this correctly, be looking for a secondary dominant chord that…
  • Doesn’t go where it’s supposed to
  • Is followed by a root position chord WITH root movement up by step