Jeff, one of my students, is learning “Your Cheatin’ Heart” by Hank Williams. He was curious about a particular sequence of chords within the song, which lead to a larger question:
Why do dominant chords sound tense and how do we resolve that tension?
In this case, the chord changes in question are D-dominant 7 to G-dominant 7 (D7 to G7, for short.)
To simplify the explanation, let’s change the G7 chord to a G-major chord. I’ll address G7 later. Now, get familiar with the sound of the chords D7 and G by playing them back-to-back. Play the D7 and let it ring for a moment before changing to the G-major chord. Do this several times before moving on.
D7 G
---2--------3---
---1--------0---
---2--------0----
---0--------0---
------------2---
------------3---
As you can hear, the D7 chord is tense and the G-major chord helps to resolve that tension. A D7 chord resolves to a G-major chord because of a conflict present between those two chords. In fact, there are three sources of conflict between the two chords and they all want to be resolved. Let’s dig in.
First, let’s discuss the primary reason that D7 (and all dominant chords, for that matter) feel tense. To demonstrate, play an F# on the second fret of the high-E string. Now let’s play C on the first fret of the B string. Play those two notes back to back. Play them together, also. You’ll immediately be struck by how dark and tense they sound. There’s a conflict between those two notes. F# and C are a tritone – or three whole-steps, six frets – apart from one another. They are very dark companions indeed.
As you might have guessed, both of these notes are found in the D7 chord. Therefore, a D7 chord, along with all dominant chords, have a dark, tense feeling to them as a result of the presence of a tritone within their structure. The tension is so strong that we feel obligated to resolve that conflict. We feel compelled to move on to another chord. But not just any other chord, but specifically a G-major chord. Let’s find out why.
I’d like you to play the note F# again on the second fret of the high-E string. Play that F# for a moment, then play the note G, one fret higher. Do that a few times: F# to G. Each time you do it, there’s a sense of expectation or inevitability that F# will go up to G. There’s a strong pull there; a gravity, so to speak. F# wants to resolve to G. That happens between any two notes that are a half-step apart and the lower note is played first. The first note is acting as a leading tone to the second note, which in turn is acting as the tonic. The tonic is just a fancy name for the note that has become the center of attention. It is the note that feels the most settled, or, in other words, the note that feels most like home. The leading tone and the tonic are always a half-step apart with the tonic being the higher of the two notes. The leading tone leads the ear to the tonic.
Now, let’s find the note A on the second fret of the G string. Play it and let it ring for a moment before playing the open G note, two frets below the A. These two notes are a whole-step apart, two frets. Play that sequence a few times. Play A briefly, then change to G. You’ll notice a similar (albeit weaker) gravity towards G. The A note wants to fall down to G after you hear it a few times. In this case, the A is acting as the supertonic to G. Supertonics want to fall to their tonic, one whole step below. Once again, G feels like the center of attention, or home and therefore it is indeed the tonic.
Now, let’s use these concepts to resolve the tension of the D7 chord and move to a more stable, friendly-sounding G-major chord.
Here are the notes in each chord:
Chord name: D7 G-major
D (root) G (root)
F# (3rd) B (3rd)
A (5th) D (5th)
C (7th)
It’s not apparent how any of these concepts are working until we reorder the notes in the G-major chord to make the concepts above come to light.
Chord name: D7 G-major
D (root) ======== D (5th)
F# (3rd) ==up===> G (root)
A (5th) =down====^
C (7th) =down==> B (3rd)
Let’s examine the interactions between the notes in these two chords more closely. We’ll work from top to bottom.
-
The note D in the D7 chord doesn’t need to move because it is present in the G-major chord.
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The note F# in the D7 chord is acting as the leading tone to, and wants to move up to, the G note in G-major. F# also creates tremendous tension as one half of the tritone partnership with the C note in the D7 chord. By changing from the note F# to G, we are removing the tritone from the structure, releasing that tension.
-
The note A in the D7 chord is acting as the supertonic to, and wants to fall down to, the note G in the G-major chord.
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The note C in D7 is a tritone partner to the note F# and wants to move away from that tension to the note B in the G-major chord. By changing from the note C to B, we are removing the tritone from the structure, releasing that tension.
Play the D7 and the G-major chords back to back again:
D7 G
---2--------3---
---1--------0---
---2--------0---
---0--------0---
------------2---
------------3---
Linger on the D7 for a moment and you’ll hear that tension building. Then, resolve that conflict by playing the G-major chord. That’s the work of leading tones, tritones and supertonics. All dominant chords have these three elements in them and therefore are deliciously unstable and tense. They make for great motivators to move through a chord progression.
So where does a G7 chord come in to play?
It’s an “out of the pan but into the fire” situation. Let me explain.
Firstly, the D7 chord will still feel resolved when moving to the G7 chord. But the G7, like the D7 and all dominant chords, also has a tritone in it. Consequently, G7 also has tension that wants to be resolved and therefore creates a new need to move towards yet another chord that resolves that tension. In this case, it would be the C-major chord. Which is exactly what happens in “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”
Try it out for yourself and listen to the tension-resolution domino effect. The chord D7 resolves to G7, but then G7 has it’s own conflict that resolves to C-major. Since C-major is not a dominant chord and doesn’t have a tritone, it feels stable and we’re no long compelled to move on to another chord.
D7 G7 C
---2--------1--------0---
---1--------0--------1---
---2--------0--------0---
---0--------0--------2---
------------2--------3---
------------3------------
In fact, every major and minor chord has a companion chord that will want resolve to it. It’s called a secondary dominant. To find any chord’s secondary dominant, just find the 5th of the chord and make a dominant chord out of it. That dominant chord will resolve to the major or minor chord that you started with. Here are a few examples:
1. Chord name: C-major
Root: C
3rd E
5th G*
Secondary Dominant to C-major is G7
2. Chord name: A-minor
Root: A
3rd C
5th E*
Secondary Dominant to A-minor is E7
3. Chord name: G-major
Root: G
3rd B
5th D*
Secondary Dominant to G-major is D7
4. Chord name: E-major
Root: E
3rd G#
5th B*
Secondary Dominant to E-major is B
5. Chord name: D-major
Root: D
3rd F#
5th A*
Secondary Dominant to D-major is A7
*Make a dominant chord with this note.
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