Klarinet Archive - Posting 000199.txt from 2001/06

From: Shouryunus Sarcasticii <jnohe@-----.Edu>
Subj: RE: [kl] ....more about harmony
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 14:39:15 -0400

On Mon, 4 Jun 2001, William Wright wrote:

> Could you post a few words about the phrase "dominant of the
> dominant"? I've read this phrase in several messages, and therefore
> it's probably an important idea, but I don't understand what it means
> (and I can't find it in "Scales, Intervals, Triads....")
>
> In another post, you used the word "secondary" (secondary leading
> tone). Could you expand on this a bit as well?

In as quick and as simple as I can make them, "secondary" in this sense
(which is also "dominant of dominant") is akin to temporary modulation.
When someone says the "dominant of the dominant" (also called "five of
five" and numerically stated as V/V or V7/V, etc), the dominant, which is
of course, the fifth of the tonic key, becomes tonic temporarily by
altering the chord before it to function as a dominant of that chord. If
you read this progression:

C, Amin, D, G, C

which is

I, vi, V/V, V, I.

We have the tonic, then a submediant, and then we breifly modulate from C
major to G major, and the D chord functions as a dominant of G, our
temporary new tonal center. When the D, functioning as the dominant of G,
resolves to that G, the G no longer functions as a new tonic, but now
functions as the dominant of C, the original key. It's essentially a one
and a half chord modulation. As I said, these are referred to as
secondary dominants (because they are in a secondary tonal center, not the
primary, tonic one), dominant of dominants, or five of fives. These can
be stretched slightly, as well, as you can have secondary diminshed
chords:

... vii/,V, V/V, V, I

Or go crazy like jazz people do, and just go nuts:

ii7/ii, V7/ii, II7, ii7/V, V7/V, V7, vi7, II7, V7, I7.

(I can't remember where I saw this...I think it was in Mark Taylor's Time
Bomb...)

But there's a simple run at it. Sort of.

J. Shouryu Nohe
http://web.nmsu.edu/~jnohe
Professor of SarCaSM102, New Mexico State Univ.
"I think we have a ghost in our house." - Kaycee Nicole

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