Using Borrowed Chords - Music Composition

Find out how to borrow chords from the parallel key as a means of adding colour to your harmony and to understand how composers use this technique. This music composition lesson presents a short piece of harmony and demonstrates ways in which borrowed chords can be injected, covering issues of voice leading, as well as how to prepare for and to resolve the borrowed chords. This video will help you add variety and extra colour to your harmony.

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🕘 Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction to using borrowed chords
0:19 - What is a parallel key?
1:57 - How do borrowed chords work?
3:28 - Finding the major chords
5:32 - Finding the minor chords
9:14 - When to use borrowed chords
11:12 - Playing the example piece
11:34 - Working through the example piece
26:48 - Comparison with and without borrowed chords
27:42 - Conclusion

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[MusicMattersGB]

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[LouisSerieusement]

10:34 I always say that theory helps us to put name on specific feelings/color so we can spot them in songs and re-use them whenever we want more easily. It is really helpful

[jayducharme]

I love the sound of your example. Borrowed chords are now my new favorite thing!

[carlstenger]

Delightful video. Adding color to a seemingly "okay" piece brings a special kind of joy that's hard to beat. First, you get to surprise the performers during practice. Then, they get to surprise the audience at the performance. It's a win / win.

[philipkudrna]

Glad you mentioned the augmented second in the alto. I feel, in a choir the alto usually has the hardest job, as their melodic lines are usually full of such exotic intervals that sound weird on their own. Also tenors can be „blessed“ with this, while usually voice Leasings of bass and soprano are „easy listening“ and free from strange jumps or melodic lines.

[lornapenn-chester]

Working my way through all I’ve been missing! Another great lesson, thank you! 😊

[Camaleonte]

Excellent exploration, Gareth. Thanks. The borrowed chords change the piece from sounding like a hymn to a bona fide classical piece

[PapitaPure]

These are the kind of chords that give me goosebumps the most.

[mymatemartin]

This was a great tutorial. Really explains a lot and for me, provided clarity on things I could sense but not quite understand before.

[SIQN-]

Always insightful and enjoyable. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with the world.

[christopherlord]

Very well-thought-out and well-executed piece of instruction. I believe that a more extreme version of this idea is found in blues and also in flamenco: what I call 'paradoxical harmony'. The scales used for the parallel harmony are not diatonic. In Blues, a major or possibly mixolydian harmony coexists with a pentatonic minor on the same root, which is directly discordant, and in flamenco the phrygian harmony of the 'andalusian cadence' coexists with a kind of chromatic diminished harmony which uses the flat 5 as a harmony note: again, just about as discordant as possible. Keep up the good work.

[ilninfeo]

Fantastic and very useful lesson! Thank you, dear Gareth!

[yinwong]

best of the best channel ever! can't live without it

[basslobster]

Great as always. Appreciate your effort on this subject.
Greetings from 🇸🇪😀

[tayewo]

Thanks so much for all your teachings.

[lawrencetaylor]

Merci for this, even though I'm not ready to compose, I feel that I will have a good preparation with your videos.

[newnewchannel]

I love your theory lesson so much Mr. Matters. Thank you!

[desoconnor]

It’s been a while ..you look really well and this tutorial really cleared a mystery for me in relation to borrowed chords..thanks 🎵👍

[SebastianAmmerlynd]

Great to point out the nomenclature! In German, the "parallel" to C major would actually be A minor. C minor would be the "variant" key to C major in German.

[bitegoatie]

The dominant chord is the same in the parallel scale only if one uses the so-called “harmonic” minor (in the 8:20-8:30 range you drop that specification). You simply change the minor chord to a major chord in the second-most important chord in the minor scale - which has always seemed to me silly if it’s going to be used as a matter of routine. Just as an aside, I have never liked this bit of nomenclature, nor the business of calling the doubly altered minor scale “melodic”. We can use altered tones for all sorts of reasons, and that’s all fine. Making these particular alterations common practice undercuts the familiarity of minor keys and distorts the way we discuss minor keys. But that’s just me. You have done well describing the common practices.