Friday, January 22, 2016

Secondary Function And The Wonderful World Of II-Vs

This week we went over some really important concepts in modern harmony, so let's get started! As always, put your answers in the comments below or on the main video.

1) Let's start with a discussion question. At the start of the video, we mentioned how the V chord is special, getting most harmonic developments before other chords do. Why do you think that is? What makes the V chord, or dominant function in general, so special?

2) Let's move on to II-Vs, because those are the real meat of this episode. Let's try identifying them: Below are the basic chords for the jazz song I Love You, by Cole Porter. See how many II-Vs you can find! (HINT: There's a lot.)


3) Finally, let's talk about that last thing I said, about the voice-leading symmetries. I'm not gonna give you more work to do than that, but see if you can't go back and figure out what I was talking about there. It's not crucial, but it's an interesting concept and understanding it might give you some valuable insight into harmonic structure. Give it a try!

And that's it! See you next week!

1 comment:

  1. 1) Its special in that way that it is the chord with most pull and consonance towards the tonic chord. Its a really stable place to be.

    2) the first 3 chords are ii,V,I in this piece in F major this progression Gm to C.
    Then it also looks like Am to D is a ii-V progression which resolves to Gm this is with use of secondary dominant function. Giving a total of 10 ii-V in the first 10 bars.

    then there comes a section i'm not sure which key we are in here but its about but looking like its resolving again to Gm and then repeating the pattern i would guess there is 15 :P

    3) the movement in the bass from ii-V is the same as V-I was kinda the only thing i grasped.

    Im not sure about the G to C.

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