Secondary Dominants-Example 5

A Rule of Analysis
When providing an analysis of a piece of music, choose whatever method of analysis is going to show you what is actually going on in the piece.

Our final example of secondary dominants will show a chain of secondary dominants. For this, we will return once again to Rhythm Changes (I Got Rhythm), but the middle section (B) of the piece. (Through this example, we will see what the above rule of analysis refers to.)

Rhythm Changes (I Got Rhythm)

The middle section, the B section, of Rhythm Changes (I Got Rhythm), is shown below:

If we try to analyze this section with roman numerals, we find that only a few chords at the end of the section are diatonic in the key of the piece, Bb.

However, looking at the progression, we notice that it is a down a fifth progression.

Therefore, we will provide roman numerals for this section by analyzing it backwards. Therefore, we will first look at the C7 in m. 5-6.

The C7 is a major-minor 7th chord, a V7, but not a V7 in the key of Bb. Since its root, C, resolves down a fifth to F (scale degree 5 in the key of Bb), we will analyze this C7 as a V7/V.

Next, let’s look at the G7 in m. 3-4.

The G7 is a major-minor 7th chord, a V7, but, again, not the V7 in the key of Bb. Since its root, G, resolves down a fifth to C (scale degree 2 in the key of Bb), we will analyze this G7 as a V7/ii.

Note that we have already analyzed the C chord (m. 5-6) as another secondary dominant. This does not change the analysis of the G7 chord; we would not say that G7 is a V7/ V7/V (very confusing). We just say it is a V7/ii, the ii being the chord that would be diatonic on the C, scale degree 2 in Bb.

Finally, let’s look at the D7 in m. 1-2.

The D7 is also a major-minor 7th chord, a V7, but still not the V7 in the key of Bb. Since its root, D, resolves down a fifth to G (scale degree 6 in the key of Bb), we will analyze this G7 as a V7/vi. Again, it does not matter in our analysis that the next chord is an altered vi chord (a V7/ii). We still call the D7 chord a V7/vi.

Therefore, our finished analysis is as follows:

A Rule of Analysis

Note that the roman numeral analysis for this section does not easily show what is going on in this section; we cannot easily see through the roman numerals that this is a down a 5th progression.

It is much easier to see the down a 5th root movement with just the jazz chord symbols.

A Rule of Analysis
When providing an analysis of a piece of music, choose whatever method of analysis is going to show you what is actually going on in the piece.