Borrowed Chords
Main article: Borrowed chordA borrowed chord is one that is taken from a different key to that of the piece it is used in (called "home key"). The most common occurrence of this is where a chord from the parallel major or minor key is used. Particularly good examples can be found throughout the works of composers such as Schubert.
For instance, for a composer working in the C major key, a major â™III chord would be borrowed, as this appears only in the C minor key. Although borrowed chords could theoretically include chords taken from any key other than the home key, this is not how the term is used when a chord is described in formal musical analysis.
When a chord is analysed as "borrowed" from another key it may be shown by the Roman numeral corresponding with that key after a slash so, for example, V/V indicates the dominant chord of the dominant key of the present home-key. The dominant key of C major is G major so this secondary dominant will be the chord of the fifth degree of the G major scale, which is D major. If used, this chord will cause a modulation.
Read more about this topic: Chord (music)
Famous quotes containing the words borrowed and/or chords:
“That’s what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with
might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)