- Hi, I'm Gareth Green, and in this video, we're going to be thinking
about how to resolve a dominant seventh chord. Okay, let's have just a quick think about what a dominant seventh is. So the dominant is the
fifth note of the scale, so if we're in the key of C major, well, the fifth note is G, C, D, E, F, G, one, two, three, four, five. If we make a chord on the fifth note, that will be the dominant chord, so a root, a third, and
a fifth above the root, so that's G, B, D, that's
the dominant chord. If I want to make it a dominant seventh, well, I add a seventh above it. So root, three above the
root, five above the root, seven above the root, so
that's a dominant seventh. So in any key, you look for
the fifth degree of the scale, and you make that one,
three, five, seven, chord using any sharps or flats
that are in the key signature, and you've got your
dominant seventh chord. Well, if you're reading these kind of dominant seventh
chords on a lead sheet, you'll see things like
G seven, for example, that's how that chord would be described. And if you're playing that on
the keyboard or the guitar, you'll know what that chord is, and it's all very straightforward
to just play that. If you're writing and playing music that's using conventional
four-part harmony, there are certain rules of engagement about how to resolve a dominant seventh, in other words, what follows
the dominant seventh chord, and how do we have to go about that? And that's really what
I'm talking about here, because lots of people, when they write dominant
sevenths in music, don't fully comprehend how
they're supposed to resolve them, and then they often say, "Something sounds slightly strange "about what's going on here." So hopefully we can mop all this up in the next few minutes. And basically, this is how it goes. If you have a dominant seventh chord, this is not true of other
sevenths, necessarily, so you can have a seventh on any chord. So if I'm in C major, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, they're the seven notes before I get back to the first one again. I can have a seventh there, and because it's on the
first note of the scale, it's a tonic seventh, or a I7. Then I can have a supertonic
seventh, or a II7, a median seventh, or a III7, a subdominant seventh, or a IV7, a dominant seventh, or a V7, that's what we're talking about. Then you can have a
submediant seventh, a VI7. You can have a leading
note seventh, a VII7. So all these degrees of the
scale, you can form sevenths on, but if you're forming it on
the fifth degree of the scale, the dominant seventh,
there are particular rules of engagement that are
worth knowing about, because of all the seventh chords, we use the dominant seventh
more than any other. So let's take that G seven chord, that dominant seventh
chord in the key of C. So G, B, D, F. And there are a couple
of rules of engagement that we're going to consider, and this is all about something
we call voice leading. In other words, if there's
a note that particularly wants to be followed by another note, then that's what voice leading is. So when you hear this chord, you hear this note at the top, and if you had to sing the
next note, what would it be? You'd probably want to
come down to this note, ♪ la, la ♪ So you see, the seventh wants to fall. That's voice leading. Also, the third of that
chord, this B-natural, B is the third, and the B wants to rise. So the seventh wants to fall and the third wants to rise. So you fall by a step, you rise by a step, both by a semitone, or a
half-step, in this case. Now, there's often a rule
that's stated in textbooks, which I believe to be
slightly incorrectly stated, and let me try and explain why. The rule is sometimes stated like this, that "in order to resolve
a dominant seventh chord, "you must follow it with
a chord I, a tonic chord, "or a chord VI, the submediant chord." Well, that's not really the rule. The rule is what I've
just been talking about, that the seventh wants to fall and the third wants to rise, but the thing is, if the seventh
falls and the third rises, you end up with two notes,
in this case, C and E. Now, C and E are the root and the third of a chord I in the key
of C, the tonic chord, or they're the third and the
fifth of a chord VI in C, the submediant chord. So that's why you end up following the dominant seventh with
a tonic chord, a chord I, or a chord VI, the submediant chord, not because you have to do that, but because if the seventh
is going to fall by a step and the third is going to rise by a step, those are the only two
chords that will fit. So I hope that gives you
some of the reasoning behind what's going on here. Now, of course, you can break those voice leading rules, if you like. You know, it's up to you. If you think it sounds good, that's the ultimate acid test, isn't it? But those are the kind of rules of thumb that are worth thinking
about, and normally, that's what wants to happen. So, now we've got that straight, let's have a look at these examples that we've got in front of us, and let me talk through some of the issues that come out of this. So just to make life a
bit more interesting, I'm now going to talk about how to resolve a dominant seventh chord, and we're going to be
in the key of D major. So D major's got F-sharp and C-sharp. So the chords are I,
II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, and so the dominant seventh chord is the fifth note of the scale, A, and then we're going to
go three, five, seven, and I'm using C-sharp, because C-sharp's in the scale of D major. Okay, so when you look at example one, this first chord here is the V7 chord. Let's see how it's organised. I've got the root of
the chord in the bass, I've got the third in the soprano part, then I've got the fifth in the tenor part, and the seventh in the alto part. So what are we saying? The seventh has got to fall. So here's the seventh, and
that's going to fall by a step. And the third is going to
rise, here's the third, it's going to rise by a step. So you can hear that that top
part, the third is going up, in the alto part, that
seventh is coming down. You can hear those two parts
together, as well, can't you? They want to resolve
in that particular way. You can sort of hear that. Okay, well, I'm filling in the other part, so example number one goes like this, which is fine, because it
obeys the rules, doesn't it? The seventh has fallen by a step, the third has risen by a step, and I've gone from a chord V7 here to a chord I there, obeying the rules. Now, there's only one
little problem about this. It's not a massive problem, but if you look at how
this then works out, you'll notice that I've got
the tonic note three times, that D, the first note of the scale, I've got it in the bass,
I've got it in the tenor, and I've got it in the soprano. So I've got what's called a triple root. It doesn't sound horrible, but it means there's no A in the chord, there's no fifth anywhere in that chord. Now, if you want to miss
a note out of any chord, it's usually the fifth that
you can choose to omit. So if you don't want to
have a fifth in a chord, that's absolutely fine, so there's nothing wrong with example one, other than when you hear that chord I, it just sounds a little
bit kind of tonic-focused, doesn't it? Doesn't sound bad in any way whatsoever. But one thing you might think about if you're writing this
stuff and you end up with that triple root situation is, can we have the same situation, but if we organised the
middle parts differently, does it work out better? So in example two, you can see the soprano is still going C-sharp,
D, as example one did. The bass is still going
A, D, as example one did, but I've reorganised the middle, so I've got two A's in the alto part, I've put the seventh
in the tenor this time, which is falling by a step to F-sharp. Okay, well, what
difference does that make? The difference it makes
is that then we end up in that tonic chord with
two roots, bottom and top. We've got a third in the tenor. We've got a fifth in the alto. So it makes for a slightly
better final chord than this one. And how did we achieve it? Simply by reorganising the
inner parts a little bit. And you can also see that when I have the dominant seventh chord,
I've got the root in the bass, I've got the third in the soprano, I haven't got the fifth anywhere, but I've got the seventh in the tenor, but you'll notice that
the root is doubled. Doubling the root is often
quite a strong thing to do. But you see what I've done, I've missed out the fifth of
the dominant seventh chord in order to get a fuller
tonic chord to finish. So it doesn't sound massively different, but sometimes just organising things in a slightly different
way with the middle parts means you get a better final chord. So, nothing wrong with example one. Example two might be deemed
to be marginally better. But it's a funny thing, isn't it, because in example one,
we've got a complete V7 chord and an incomplete tonic chord. In example two, we've got
an incomplete V7 chord and a complete tonic
chord, but on balance, example two works slightly
better than example one. Okay, well, what am I doing,
then, in example three? Well, I'm showing you how you might decorate things a little bit, and this is often what happens in reality. So here, I'm starting on this first chord with a chord V, a dominant
chord with no seventh in it. And then we have what looks like a passing note in the alto. It's moving by a step from the note before and by a step on to the note after, but this passing note
happens to be the seventh of a dominant seventh
chord, of the V7 chord. So we start with V, then
we have a passing note that makes it V7, on our way to I. So that sounds quite good
because you start with a V, you make the V stronger by making it a V7, and then you go to I. It's nearly always better
to do it that way around. Start with an ordinary
chord V, a dominant chord, make it stronger by adding the seventh, and then move on to the resolution, rather than starting with
the dominant seventh, then weakening it by
taking the seventh away. You see the logic in that. So that's what's going on there. Now, of course, what we've
got here is something that's a slight decoration
over the previous examples, but we've ended up with
the example one problem, haven't we, of the triple root. Have a look at example four, because what I'm doing is
that little trick we did when we compared example
one with example two, because this time I'm
reorganising the middle parts so that we can end up with
a complete final chord. So if you can see what I'm doing here, I'm starting with V, I'm going to V7, then I'm going to I, exactly
what we did in example three, but this time, it's
happening in the tenor part, so that the tenor part can give us the seventh resolving downwards, but the alto part can just repeat that A. Repeating the A is quite a
nice thing to do as well, because it's what we call a common note. In other words, you have
A in the dominant chord, chord V, and you also have A
in the tonic chord, chord I. So if you have a common note, if you can repeat it in the same voice, that's a stronger thing to do. You can see that in the first version, we had A in the bass, but it
had to move to D, didn't it, so we couldn't use the common note there. When we reorganised things in example two, we were able to use that
common note in the alto. We're not able to use the
common note repetition in this example, in example three, but we can in example four, and by then putting this
movement into the tenor part, we end up with a full chord I. So example four goes, and gives you that fuller finish. Okay, example five is just showing a way of elaborating it a step further. So it's exactly the same as example four, but this time we're going
to put in a passing note. So whenever you have this melodic interval of a third, you could always think, is there a chance to tuck in the note in between? So we've got E followed by G,
F-sharp comes between them, so how about we just stick in that F-sharp as what we call a passing
note or a passing tone, and it just elaborates it even further. So, example four sounds like this. Example five sounds like this. And you can hear and see, it's just a way of elaborating
it a touch further. Okay, let's have a look at example six and see what I've done here. Well, in example six, I'm
just laying out the chord in a slightly different way, but we're doing exactly the same thing. So we're going V7 to I in
this first version of it. That's exactly what we were
doing in example one, really, but we're just reorganising
the parts a bit. But you see, same problem. We've got this triple
root as the conclusion. Okay, now then, this is the
point at which I can tell you about one exception to this rule. Remember, the rule is, the
seventh has to fall by a step, the third has to rise by a step. Okay, here's the exception. If, by making the third rise by a step, you create a tonic chord
with a triple root in it, then that third of the
dominant seventh chord is allowed to fall to the
fifth of the tonic chord, all right? So this applies when you're
following your chord V7, your dominant seventh,
with a chord I, okay? So the seventh has to fall
by step, that's a given. But if the third rises by a step, and that's the thing that causes you to have a triple root in the next chord, then you are allowed to have that third fall to the fifth of the next tonic chord. Okay, so looking at example six, the first bar of this is showing
you how to obey the rule. The seventh falls by a step in the alto. The third rises by a step in the tenor. In the second bar, I'm
rewriting that slightly, the seventh still falls by step
in the alto because it must, but this third, instead of
rising by step in the tenor, which is what it's supposed to do, is falling to A, which is
the fifth of the next chord. Now that's another good way to make sure we get a complete tonic chord. So the first version in six, the first bar, triple root. The second bar of six, the
other way of doing this, just gives you a slightly
fuller chord because we've now got the fifth in that
chord in the tenor part. Okay, so I hope that makes
sense, that little exception. Okay, well, when we go
on to example seven, we're now just talking about other options for decorating. So what's going on here? Well, I start with chord V, I'm
going to use a passing note, we talked about that a few moments ago, the passing note's going to
take me on to the seventh, so V, passing, V7, and then, instead of just going straight to chord I, in the tenor part I'm
using a 4-3 suspension. Okay, so that's a 4-3 suspension. Why is it a 4-3 suspension? That G is a fourth above the bass D. I've got D in the bass,
that G is a fourth above it. It's an octave and a fourth,
but that doesn't matter, and it's going from the
fourth above the bass to the third above the bass, the F-sharp. Okay, so that's a suspension. A suspension has to be prepared, it has to sound, it has to resolve. It's prepared here, it sounds
here, it resolves there. Okay, so prepare and sound must be the same note as each other, prepare must belong to its chord, resolve must belong to its chord, and when you go from suspend to resolve, you have to go by a
step, normally downwards. So this obeys all the
rules of a suspension, and it's a 4-3 suspension, so we're doing just the same chords, we're going V7, I, but this time, we're adding in a passing
note and a suspension. So the first bar of number
seven sounds like this. So you can hear, that kind of zips it up a
bit further, doesn't it, rather than just going V7, I. And then all I'm showing you in the second bar of number seven is how you could elaborate
that even further. You've got the 4-3 suspension, but when you decorate a suspension, you can go 4-2-3, and that's just a way to
decorate it a little bit. So the additional note is this, where we're just going to go 4-2-3. So the second bar number
seven goes like this. So that's just a way of kind of putting more icing on the cake, if you like. Okay, we're getting there. Example number eight is starting the same as example number seven, so you can see, we've got V going to V7, using the passing note, but this time, we're going to do a cadential 6-4, 5-3. So in other words, instead of going straight
to the resolution of the seventh on to the tonic, I can actually do this. Okay, so previously, I was going straight to the chord I, but using a 4-3 suspension in the tenor. Now I'm arriving on the chord I, but by using B and G in the alto and the tenor parts there, I'm actually using chord
IV, the subdominant chord, to delay the resolution to the I. So this goes to this at the end. So let's just be clear about that. This is chord IV in second inversion, so
it's what we call IVc, IV in the second inversion. You might know that as a IV6-4 chord, but it's the same thing as
IV in the second inversion, and that goes on to chord I. And this is called a 6-4,
5-3 cadential progression. So it's a way of
interrupting the resolution. This resolves on to this, but this is a way of just
delaying it for a moment. So we have chord V,
passing note, becomes V7, and then a cadential 6-4 where
we go chord IVc, chord I. Just zaps it up a bit further. Okay, now, when we started this, I said that because of this
seventh falling by a step and the third rising by a step, you have to follow your
dominant seventh with a chord I, a tonic chord, or with a chord
VI, the submediant chord. Everything we've done
in examples one to eight has been focused on the tonic chord, so I just wanted to spend example nine talking about what happens
if we go to chord VI. So, well, the same things apply. So the first bar of example nine is this. So you can hear, instead
of going to chord I, I've gone to chord VI,
the submediant chord. And here, everything's behaving itself. The seventh is falling
by a step in the alto, the third is rising by
a step in the soprano. Okay, what am I doing in the second bar? Little trick we've talked about,
I'm starting with chord V, I'm adding a passing
note that makes it V7, and then I'm going on to chord VI. So this second bar sounds like this. Sounds all right, doesn't it? So we're reasonably happy with that. The third bar is just
showing you something else we did before, but, you know, instead of having the
elaboration in the alto, we're putting it in the tenor. Okay, so there we are, and
that's kind of, you know, gives us a slightly
different resolution of it. Now, the reason I put that in there is just to alert you to a
little potential problem. When you look at this, there's a perfect fifth
between the tenor and the bass. When you look at this resolution, there's also a perfect fifth
between the tenor and the bass. Now, it's a funny thing, this, because does that mean that
we have consecutive fifths between the tenor and the bass? Well, one argument is, yes we do, because this is just a sort
of elaboration of the chord V, so the essential movement is V to VI, and that's where we've got fifths. Another school of thought would say, "Well, this is chord V. "This is a new chord, chord V7, "and this is another new chord, VI. "And between here and there,
we haven't got a fifth." So some gurus of harmony would say this means you've got consecutive fifths. Others would say that this means you haven't got consecutive fifths. So it's one of those
funny things, isn't it? Another odd thing is, if the time signature were to be 2/2, then it would be even more dangerous, because this is the first
beat, that's the second beat. So some would then say, "Well, you've definitely
got consecutive fifths "between this beat and that beat, "and this is just something
going on in between the beats." Because we're in 4/4, you can legitimately
argue that's beat one, that's a new beat, beat two, that's another new beat, beat three. So in fact, you could
justify your existence there. So it's one of those
things to watch out for. If you're going to go V7 to VI, do we end up with something
that could be deemed to be consecutive fifths? So a little health warning
there, if you like. There's another thing you can do, which is quite a nice
little harmonic elaboration, and it's another one of these sorts of slightly delayed
responses to the resolution. We've talked about how we
might go V or V7 to VI. Well, one thing you can
do is what I've done here, which is to go V, and then say, "Well, let's have a
diminished seventh, on to VI." That's quite a colourful
thing to do, isn't it? Or even start with the dominant seventh and then the diminished seventh on to VI. That's also equally good. So in other words, we're
delaying the resolution to VI by putting another chord in between that flows on quite nicely, and the diminished seventh is often a way of enriching a dominant seventh, so you have a dominant chord, or you have a dominant seventh chord, and then you enrich it by doing that, because if you have the
dominant seventh chord, you're only actually moving one note, up a semitone or a half-step,
to get a diminished seventh, and that will be a diminished
seventh in the key of B minor, A-sharp, C-sharp, E, G, but because the chord VI in the key of D is a chord of B minor,
it works really well. Now, the reason I've printed it as I have is to try and make another point. If you just use chord V instead of V7, you're likely to end up with something called false relations. This is an A-natural in the alto there. That's an A-sharp in the bass there. So what's a false relation? I've got A-natural followed by A-sharp. It does sound a bit strange, doesn't it? So when I've got the same
note in a different octave, in a different part, but
with a different accidental, that's a false relation. The bass isn't, because
it's going A to A-sharp at the same pitch,
effectively, in the same part, it's just moving a semitone. But the alto A-natural
to A-sharp in the bass is a false relation. So in this case, it
would've been much better to have actually had
a G in the alto there, to start with a V7, and so when you move on
to a diminished seventh, you're not dealing with false relations, and then on to the resolution. So, you might be a bit surprised that there seems to be
so much to think about when all we're doing
is resolving one chord. And as I say, if you're just
playing off a lead sheet and you're strumming or
playing a dominant seventh followed by another
chord, fine, go for it. If you're writing harmony, lots of mistakes get made with
resolving dominant sevenths, because people haven't had the opportunity to think about all of these issues. So, if you want to be absolutely
crystal clear about it, be entirely confident about it, what I've tried to do now is just outline all the issues that you'd need to consider when resolving a dominant seventh chord. If you've enjoyed this video, then have a look at our website, www.mmcourses.co.uk, where you'll find details of our courses, lots of online courses
there, on harmony, theory, aural work, analysis, orchestration, a lot of stuff, Bach chorales, how to do harmonisation
in the style of Bach, all sorts of things that
might be of interest, so have a look around, see
what you can find there. And while you're on the home page, have a click on Maestros to
find out what that's all about. This is our wonderful global community of like-minded musicians, all delightful people, I can tell you, and we meet for a livestream once a month, where there's a lot of
teaching input from me for the first livestream, and
then in the second livestream, you have the opportunity
to hand in recordings of your own performances,
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whatever, ask questions, and we do some real kind of
one-to-one feedback stuff there, and we share that as a group, and you'll get all the mutual support from these wonderful people as well. So, if that's of interest, have a look. See what you can find.
