Secondary Dominants-Example 3

For our third example of a piece with secondary dominants, we will look at “Do-Re-Mi” from the 1959 musical The Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Most know the movie version with Julie Andrews released in 1965 better. You can listen to the whole song from the movie here.

Our analysis will concentrate on the refrain starting with the words: “Sew, a needle pulling thread. . .”

“Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music

First, listen to the chords for the section of the refrain to be analyzed.

Next, analyze all the diatonic chords with roman numerals. Some chords, the chords marked with colored blocks below, are the non-diatonic chords which will need to be looked at further.

Notice that there are two C7 chords. Both are used in a similar fashion so we will look at these together.

Both C7 chords are major-minor 7th chords and will sound like V7 chords.
If they are functioning as V7 chords, their root, the C, should resolve down a fifth to F, which they do.
F is the 4th scale degree in the key of C.
Therefore, both C7 chords will be analyzed as V7/IV.

Next, let’s look at the D7 chord.

The D7 chord is also a major-minor 7th chord, and so will sound like a V7 chord.
If it is functioning as a V7 chord, its root, D, should resolve down a fifth to G, which it does.
G is scale degree 5 of C major.
Therefore, the D7 will be analyzed as a V7/V.

Finally, let’s look at the E7 chord.

The E7 chord is a major-minor 7th chord, and so will sound like a V7 chord.
If it is functioning as a V7 chord, its root, E, should resolve down a fifth to A, which it does.
A is scale degree 6 of C major.
Therefore, the E7 will be analyzed as a V7/vi.

The final analyzed version is as follows. In this example, we have 3 secondary dominant chords: C7 which is a V7/IV, D7 which is a V7/V, and E7 which is a V7/vi.