CHANGING COLORS

IN THIS LESSON, I’d like to begin discussing an intriguing type of chord change that many composers have put to great use in countless major-key songs. It involves “borrowing” a chord from what’s called the parallel minor key to create a temporary harmonic detour and a surprise shift in musical color and mood that’s often used to impart a touch of sadness or melancholy to an otherwise happy- and predictable-sounding progression.

Let’s start with a theory primer. In any major key, you have depicts the triads spelled generated E, F by # the # E , B major , C # scale # . The , which first, fourth is and fifth chords — E, A and B — are built from those named scale degrees and are all major, as indicated by the uppercase third Roman and numerals sixth chords I, IV and — F # m . , The G # second and C # m — are built from those scale degrees and are all minor, as denoted by the lowercase and Roman final numerals chord, D ii # , iii and , is a vi diminished . The seventh triad, indicated by the analytical symbol vii . (A lowercase Roman numeral followed by a superscript circle, or “degree” symbol, signifies diminished).