COOK BOOK:

EXPLORING THE SUBDOMINANTS

We know form working through the first harmonic functions page that every key has 8 subdominant chords

We're going to take a set progression and try replacing a subdominant chord with all the others

We're going to explore all the other subdominants in the key of C

There are 100's of ways to impliment these subdominant chords in the key of C

But this excercise demonstrates how they can all work in a restricted context

Ok,

Here's the progression:

It goes:

I - IV - I - IV

ii - IV - ii - IV

I - IV - I - I

Here's our 3 chords in the hypercube:

We're going to use our hypercube chart from the colours pages

And explore all 4 green faces of the hypercube:

One at a time, Let's swap the D minor in our progression for each of the other green chords

We've already used Fmaj and Dmin, that leaves 6 other green chords to explore:

1. D major

2. B minor

3. B major

4. Ab minor

5. Ab major

6. F minor

Each choice results in a rough idea which could be further developed into a song

1. The First one

Let's start with changing D min for D major

I also kept the 9th (E) at the top of the chord

Let's listen:

Here we can see C major, D minor and D major in the hypercube:

We're rotated 90 degrees around

2. Let's keep moving to the right on the chart

This takes us from D major to B minor

B minor doesnt have a functional name in the key of C

But we could call it 'the relative minor of the major II'

Here it is in our progression

I've once again kept the E note on top, this time being the 11th of B minor

This created a lovely whole tone interval at the top of Bm11 (D and E, the 3rd and 4th of B min)

Which I decided to hold through into the F major (D and E, being the 6th and 7th of F maj)

The hypercube shows us that our B minor is from the same green square as the previous chord choice D major

3. B major (my favorite)

which on our chart is Cb (because its in the key of Gb) But is also just a B major

I played the same shape for B min but simply raised the 3rd

This gives us a Badd11 with the E on top

Let's hear it:

Our whole tone interval at the top in the previous one has now become a semitone

and then when we go to F major it goes back to being a whole tone

This movement really melts my heart

We can see here how our B major is opporsite the initial D minor in the hypercube (180 degrees away)

4. Ab minor

I've taken a new approach to voicing this one

rarther than holding the open E string, i'm going for a a semitone clash between Bb and the open B string

This is the m3rd and 9th of Ab minor

This shape moves really nicly to a regular F^7 shape

We've also got a slightly different rhythmic vibe going on that felt natural here

Like B major, this one is also 180 degrees around the hypercube

5. Ab major

This is quite a classic chord in C because it's chord VI in the key of C minor

I'm just using a straight ^7 voicing for it

Which moves nicely into this ^9 voicing for F major

I loved holding those two notes (G and C) between Ab^7 and F^9

We can see how we're back round to being close to the initial D minor square once again

6. Last but not least

The minor iv, this has been used again and again across history for its emotional potency

Let's hear it in our tune:

I used the same F^7 voicing but simply dropped the 3rd

Keeping the E natural on top giving a minor^7 sound

We've completed a full 360 trip around the hypercube!

TABS/NOTATION COMING SOON