Secondary Dominants-Example 1

Definition: A secondary dominant is a dominant functioning chord of any major or minor chord in a key other than tonic.

Let’s look at some more examples of secondary dominants.

For our first example, we will return to the Rhythm Changes.

Rhythm Changes

We already looked at the first part of Rhythm Changes (I Got Rhythm) and analyzed everything but the G7 chord in measure 7. Let’s now look at that G7 chord.

The chord is a G7 – a major-minor 7th chord with root G. Since it is a major-minor 7th chord, it will sound like a dominant 7th (V7) chord. To see if it acts like a V7, we need to look at this chord in relation to the next chord.

If the G7 chord is V7 in a key, then the root of the G7 should resolve down a 5th to the root of the next chord. The next chord is a C-7 chord, with root C, which is down a fifth from G.

Since the G7 will sounds like a V7 chord and resolves like a V7 (resolving to a chord whose root is a fifth below), then we should call it a secondary dominant – a V7/Y.

C is ii in the key of Bb. Therefore, the secondary dominant is a V7/ii and should be analyzed as such.