Enhancing the Dominant Chord

In the last lesson, we were introduced to the concept of dominant chord function in a chord progression. We learned that the dominant (or 5/V chord) acts primarily as a tension chord, away from the tonic or "home" chord. If this all sounds complete gobbledygark, then make sure you're confident with what was covered in the introductory dominant chord lesson.

So, you should now have a good understanding of the relationship between the dominant and tonic chord. This is an important relationship as you'll come to appreciate.

What we're going to look at now is how to enhance the natural tension of that dominant chord - firstly by modifying the chord itself.

Spicing up the dominant chord

In the first part, we learned that the dominant (V) chord is a major chord. For example, a typical sequence could be G major, D major, G major. Tonic (I) - dominant (V) - tonic (I).

Rather than just play a basic major chord, dominant chords naturally use the dominant 7th. If you've been through the basic guitar chords series on this site, you'll know, for example, how to play a D dominant 7th chord...

Listen to the difference between using a regular D major chord and a dominant 7th D major chord. The dominant 7th version enhances that tension before the return back to the G major tonic.

Click to hear

We could also use extended dominant 7th chords from the lessons in the chord section of this site. One of my favourites is the dominant 9th chord..

3 4 5 6

In its D major position (fret 5 on the A string), we now have another more interesting use of the dominant chord....

Click to hear

So you can see, once you know the basic relationship between the tonic and dominant, it's simply a case of expanding your chord library to exploit that relationship in interesting and unique ways.

Another example - B major (tonic) and F#7 (dominant)...

Fret 2

Click to hear

Note: the different root note positions of the tonic and dominant were covered in part 1! Move at your own pace.

Obviously I can't show you every possible tonic-dominant sequence as we'd be here forever! Besides, you don't need to be shown every instance of this relationship because a true understanding of it comes from experimenting with different chord shapes.

Using suspended dominant chords

Another way to dress up that dominant tension is to use a suspended chord. Again, if you're not familiar with what suspended chords are, it's all covered in the chord section of the site. We'll look at a few examples anyway...

Let's go back to our tonic chord of G major in this example. So we know in this position, the dominant chord will be built on a D root note (e.g. D major, D7, D9 etc.). Therefore, we can also use a suspended D chord as the dominant chord.

For example - D7sus4 (remember, as it's D, we're at fret 5 on the A string for this movable chord shape)...

5 6 7 8

Another favourite of mine - Dsus9 - easy to finger as well as you just barre your index finger from the A string up...

Or you could mix the two to really enhance that dominant tension before returning back to G major - click to hear

Suspended 2nd chords also work in the dominant positon.

We could play around with a suspended chord and a regular dominant 7th chord in the same phrase, before returning to the G major tonic...

Click to hear

Countless examples!! You just have to know your chord voicings and experiment!

Other good uses of dominant chords

Genres such as jazz typically use even more tense dominant chords, such as the flat 9th dominant 7th chord (in this example - D7b9 - still a dominant 7th chord, but with an added note - a flat 9th)...

3 4 5 6

Click to hear

A rather tragic expression I'm sure you'd agree!

If we go back to the B major - F# major relationship from before, we can use that dominant F# position for some interesting chord shapes built on the low E string root note...

Another tense, jazzy one - F#aug7 (that's an augmented 7th chord, so still uses the dominant 7th!)

2 3 4 5

Click to hear

Are you starting to hear this natural relationship between the dominant and tonic chords? How they play off each other?

It's why this relationship has been used in music for centuries to prepare the listener for their "return home". Of course, you don't always have to use it in this context (your music might become a little predictable if you did!), but it's there, when you need that gateway.

In the next part we'll look at how other chords, related to that tonic major chord, further provide the building blocks for a chord progression. Eventually, we'll move on to minor progressions and then more complex key changes and "gateway chords", so there's a lot to cover in the coming lessons. However, the rewards will become clearer and clearer, I promise.

Thanks for your time and see you soon!

< Guitar Songwriting Contents