Today, let’s talk about borrowed chords.

They are chords literally borrowed from what we call the “parallel” minor or major key.

Let’s not mix up “parallel” with “relative.”

If we were in the key of C, as we’ve learned in other lessons, A, the 6th degree of C, is the relative minor of C. Likewise, C is the relative major of A. That’s not what we’re talking about here.

Parallel keys have the same tonic note… or home base. That means, the starting note of their scales are the same.

So the parallel minor of C major is — you guessed it — C minor!

The parallel minor of A major is — yup, A minor!

So parallel keys have the same first note and understanding this allows you to start using borrowed chords almost immediately.

Borrowed Chords Explained

To really understand borrowed chords, let’s compare the diatonic chords of C major to C minor:

C major or C major 7

D minor or D minor 7

E minor or E minor 7

F major or F major 7

G major or G7

A minor or A minor 7

B diminished or B half-diminished 7

Vs. C minor:

C minor or C minor 7

D diminished or D half-diminished7

Eb major or Eb major 7

F minor or F minor 7

G minor or G minor 7

Ab major or Ab major 7

Bb major or Bb7

Borrowed Chords – Continued

So when you employ borrowed chords, you simply take chords from the parallel minor and play them in your major key. Or vise versa… if the song was in C minor, you could take chords from C major.

1) On the 2nd tone of the scale, instead of playing your normal D minor (or 2-minor), you could play D half-diminished 7. Sounds great leading to a 5-chord.

2) Instead of going to the 5-chord to end a song or half-cadence, you can go to Bb major (the “b7”). Sounds great and you hear it in a lot of contemporary music.

3) If you want to change the mood of your song, change your 4-chord — which is normally F major — to an F minor.

4) Use Ab major (the b6) to come down to your 5-chord (Gdom7)

5) Even though this chord isn’t technically in C natural minor (it’s in C harmonic minor), use Bdim7 (B+D+F+Ab) on the 7th degree. It’s a great leading tone back home to any C chord.

6) Use Eb major (b3 tone) in certain spots… like to lead to the 4-chord… or to lead to the b6 (Ab), which can come down to the 5-chord (G), which leads back home to C. See how these things are chained together?

Well, that’s all I have for today. It’s Saturday at about 6am so everyone’s sleep. I thought I’d add another content lesson but don’t get used to Saturdays… this is an anomaly! 🙂

These borrowed chords should give you a lot to work on.