How to Write Songs — The Most Beautiful Chords: Modal Borrowing

This video explains the concept of modal borrowing, one of the most beautiful and simple ways make your chord progressions more sophisticated and colourful when writing your songs.

I explain the concept of modal borrowing, and looking at an example in the key of G major, show how to use the parallel mode of G minor to borrow a chord and transform a chord progression into something sweet and sad at the same time. We then look at a couple of song examples (links below) from famous songs that use the same chord of modal borrowing.

The examples used in the video are:

Both of these use the iv chord.

Other examples of songs with modal borrowing are:
'Gravity', by John Mayer -- in an otherwise G major song, 2 bars 'borrow' the imin and bVImaj7 (Gmin and Ebmaj7) from the parallel G Aeolian.
'Heal Over', by KT Tunstall -- the song is in E major, but the cadence uses a iv and v (Amin and Bmin) to get back to the E chord. Beautiful.

I write about songwriting and creative practice here:
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[zor]

Great content. This channel is going to be big.

[lanecam]

Hi, I have just discovered your channel. I went to Berklee in Boston for 2 years back in the 70's and I took as many courses as I could in Arranging and Guitar. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I very much enjoy your songwriting videos and I will be using your tips in my own music. Thank you and keep it up!!

[christopherecatalano]

Really clear explanation and the visual representation is perfectly demonstrated. Thank you!

[lhpbgie]

Great video! Very clear instruction. Pls keep on post videoes like this

[LesThomas]

You are bloody awesome. Thank you! Looking forward to applying this.

[newandreview]

Brilliant. A to B instructions. Been in and with music all my life. Love your simplicity.

[dananthony]

I love the video, thank you for sharing . You have a beautiful voice.

[undarksmusic]

I'm loving the videos from this channel 🤩

[gustavogonzalez]

I love yr channel. Easy explanations. Thank you so much for existing.

[TheSwatmachine]

You do a really nice job with your lessons. I'm thankful I discovered your channel. Very well done.

[kierenmoore]

That’s a relatively common/familiar/beautiful example, known as the Minor (or perfect) plagal cadence.
Yeah, Creep is what I always think of … 😊

[filinator]

bangin... easy to have breakthrough moments with this method

[jakesprake]

'Creep', by Radiohead was swiped from The Air That I Breathe written by Albert Hammond.

[foreheadlstudios]

Love this channel! Thanks for the info and the way you deliver it.

[johnnylayton]

Maybe just my familiarity with rock guitar in general, but my ear hears the E-Eb-D note movement within Cmaj-Cmin-G so strongly that I would have regarded the Eb as just a leading tone back to power chord root + 5 home rather than a modal borrowing. I would have never considered that there was far more being implied & with that far more music writing options to explore.

Thanks for this lesson!

for music theory training

[kabedford]

All I know about the minor iv to Major I transition is that it's the Plagal Cadence, and you hear it in church music. 🤷‍♂️

I like your version way better! ;) Seriously, this channel you have is such a marvel! 🦑😀😎

[permculture]

What was explained was extremely clear. What was not clear, is that the examples were borrowed minor chords, which raises the questions of, can major chords be borrowed as well? and, does it work inversely to borrow from a minor key to a major key?

[bellygunnermusic]

you have a lovely singing voice. on 'in my life' after f#minor. try A7/G then go to d major.

[jakeyboy]

Seems from your examples that the borrowed chord is always the last chord in the progression, is that the most common way to use borrowed chords?

[musicproductionvideos]

Great videos. Is the 4 minor a very common usage because it sounds the best of the choices? What other movements can we use to spice up our common progressions?