Intermediate dominant
Intermediate dominants or secondary dominants are chords with a dominant character that dissolve into a sound different from the tonic .
They are used to initiate a modulation or evasion , but can also only appear briefly, i.e. without any further-reaching consequences.
Since secondary dominants not only head of its own material of the home key can be formed, is always a use of accidentals necessary. In order to absorb the strangeness of these sounds in a harmonic context and at the same time underline the effect, intermediate dominants often appear as dominant seventh chords (see also: Characteristic dissonance ). Often they emerge chromatically from the previous sound, which in turn creates cohesion.
Special cases are the double dominant and the double subdominant .
Example in C major
| Intermediate dominant |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chords | C. | A7 | d | G7 | C. |
| Functions | T | (D7) | Sp | D7 | T |
Sub-dominants are usually bracketed in function notation and refer to the next function.
Sound examples without intermediate dominant (left) and with intermediate dominant (right):
