As with the first example, and with all examples to come, we are looking to understand the concepts mentally and hear the differences brought by the borrowed chords in our ears.
And, beyond reading and listening, what else?
We can take this as an invitation to make music, to explore what we can do on our guitars, what this learning can add to our creativity and enjoyment.
Come on, let’s get creative - make our own music, make our own sounds, build on this progression.
First, with guitar in hand, learn to do a quick play through of both versions of the D major chord progressions. As before, a useful first exercise would be to transpose to a different key - using the Circle of Fifths to help of course.
Next, we can challenge ourselves by exploring what else can be done with this D major progression.
What does it sound like if with a Bb major chord replacing the A in bar 4 rather then the F#m in bar 3?
Can we make it sound good / better by borrowing a different chord from the parallel minor key for bar 3 instead of the Bb?
What else? Perhaps doubling from four bars to eight and using one or more of the borrowed chords that sounded good?
As before, if inspiration does strike and the creative juices flow, we could share our music in the usual way!
It is time to drop in another instalment of borrowed chords goodness.
So far we have looked at major key progressions and have borrowed major chords. We will continue in major keys for now but stir things up a little. We are going to shift up a gear or two and move to the rocky side of the road.
This concept of borrowing chords is not limited to full major and / or minor chords. It can just as readily be adopted when playing a progression using power chords, and the borrowed chord(s) then get played as power chords. Power chords, having no 3rd, are neither major nor minor. But that quality is implied when played and that quality must be referenced when labeling them using the Roman numeral convention.
Note: these I, IV and V chords are all major chords within the key but are being played as power chords (B5, F#5 and E5). I have chosen not to add the ‘5’ to the chord names here and in the following posts for ease of reading the chord charts.
Let’s give it a listen.
Get ready to rock.
Mmh.
It kind of rocks.
But it is somewhat drab.
It starts on the tonic chord B, goes to the V chord then the IV and returns to the tonic chord B.
B is the tonic … b … b … b … but …
B is for Bland.
There must be more than this.
We might be able to perk this up a little, add some pep. Let’s call on our trusty friend, the Circle of Fifths, and check in at the parallel minor key of B minor to see what goodies we can borrow.
With one little squeeze of the spicy sauce we could energise this a touch and have a real belter of a rock song on our hands. What if we pulled out the tonic chord B from bars 7 and 8 and replaced it with a borrowed A chord from the parallel minor key instead? We have met a bVII previously so we should be confident and familiar with calling this A major chord by that same label. Note that the A chord is also being played as an A5 power chord.
Let’s keep the A major chord, but limit it to just bar 7. In addition, we borrow a D major chord too, played as a D5 power chord, placed in bar 8 immediately after the A chord.
The D chord is labeled as a bIII in the Roman numeral convention and we have not met that yet in the examples. So a little explanation may help understand this.
We are in the key of B major. The B major scale is B C# D# E F# G# A#
Within this major scale the 3rd scale degree is D#. The chord that we are introducing to this progression is built on a root note D. We must therefore reference the fact that this chord is built on a note that is one semitone lower than the 3rd scale degree. Upper case Roman numerals are used as it is a major chord. Hence it is labelled bIII.
We can also use this same analysis to double check that the A major chord we also borrowed is indeed correctly labelled as a bVII.
As with the examples already introduced, when we encounter, and listen to, each new example, we can gain extra benefit by actively engaging with the progressions in a variety of ways.
First, we can pick up our guitars (if electric maybe dial in a touch of overdrive), get the power chord muscles warmed up and have at it. Let’s play these three B major progressions. Get in to a rocking groove with them. Be aware of the bars containing the borrowed chords. Enjoy them.
Then we can branch out and explore and try things and see what sounds good. There are other chords within the parallel B minor key so far unused. What else could we do? What about swapping the borrowed bVII (A chord) with a bVI (G chord) instead? Or, make use of one of the minor chords (also played as a power chord).
Great stuff Richard. I love the ingredients analogy. It explains the concept perfectly: it’s just a way of spicing things up, triggering the listener.
I’m guilty of over-analyzing progressions whenever there’s a non-diatonic chord. A flat 7? Must be mixolydian. Wait a major 6, that’s Dorian. Or maybe the guitarist was just fooling around and made a mistake, but the band decided to keep the ‘error’ in because it sounded great. Who will tell?
Thanks @Jeff
I think you may be right in thinking that many songs have been written spontaneously by instinct, by sound and by feel, and not with a specific aim of using clever chord choices. That said, having the tools and knowing what the tools are used for can only be to the good. As I said to Clint, knowledge is power.
Once again we have a fairly routine and uninspiring rock rhythm that just bounces around between the tonic and the IV and V. The only difference between this and Example 3 is that the IV precedes the V here rather than following it.
We are in the key of E so what options do we have to borrow from the parallel E minor?
We can spice things up further if your needs are not yet met. Let us also bring in the C chord from the relative minor, placing it in bar 7 (before the D major bVII chord) so we have a B, C, D crescendo. We should know that the C major will be a bVI.
Learn in different keys?
Try different borrowed chords - including power chords based on minor chords from the parallel E minor key?
Switching the positions within the progression?
We will borrow two chords this time, both major chords again, Bb major and Eb major. We will place these in to bars five and six and we label them as bIII and bVI respectively. Our progression is now:
When I first posted this topic in the old JG forum, about this point in the proceedings, we had some willing participants contributing their own progressions. I do not think that David and Adrian have migrated their posts here so here are links to the originals.
