Even when a non-musician hears a dominant seventh chord on the 5th degree of the scale, they immediately begin to expect resolution.
Yup, you don’t have to be a musician to know a song or verse is coming to an end.
“Hap-py birth-day to——”
There it is. Doesn’t “to” give you that feeling of wanting to resolve to “you?”
Or “The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the——”
There it is again. “The” gives you that same feeling, doesn’t it?
“Her fleece was white as——-”
There it is again in “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”
In fact, without even hearing the 1-chord that is sure to follow, most people – musicians or otherwise – would be be able to sing or predict it beforehand.
“You.” (Happy Birthday to “YOU”).
“Town.” (All through the “TOWN”).
“Snow.” (Her fleece was white as “SNOW”).
This is not by accident. The 5-dominant chord has some very powerful properties that explain why this is the case.
Consider the G dominant 7 chord (which is the 5th degree of C major):
The first thing to note is what degrees of the C major scale this chord uses.
G is the 5.
B is the 7.
D is the 2.
F is the 4.
(Note: I’m just numbering the C major scale and pointing out which degrees these notes fall on).
It just so happens that the 2, 4, and 7th degrees are the most highly unbalanced of them all. They want to resolve somewhere.
Let’s look at a G dominant 7 chord moving to a C major chord:
G7
C major
The “B” in the G dominant 7 chord eagerly wants to resolve up to “C.”
The “D” in the G dominant 7 chord wants to resolve down to the same “C.”
And the “F” in the G dominant 7 chord longs to resolve down to the “E.”
No wonder when you resolve all 3 at the same time, you get one of the most popular chord progressions in music — the perfect cadence.
And on a broader note, when you’re thinking about what inversions and voicings of chords to play next, look at how the notes of the previous chord are moving to the notes of the next chord. Are they smooth, strong resolutions? Could you pick another inversion of the next chord to create such a sound?
Until next time.
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