What is a secondary dominant chord?

Question

What is a secondary dominant chord? What's the theory behind them? How are they used in composition?

Answer 1

A secondary dominant temporarily tonicizes the chord it follows. For the briefest of moments, we hear some chord that is not the tonic and because a dominant-sounding chord came before it we think it's the tonic anyway.

For example, let's say you and three of your music theory colleagues are singing Mozart's Jubilate Deo. The piece is in G. G is the tonic. But at the end of the series of "in laetitia"s, with that beautiful polyphonic texture resolving into homophony, all voices rest on a D chord, which would normally be the dominant of the piece and would be notated with a capital V in roman numeral analysis.

The chord before that chord is an A major chord. Notably, there's an accidental in this chord - a C sharp is not normal in the key of G. That's because once we "tonicize" the D chord that follows, the C sharp is the leading tone that points to D, which is why the D sounds like the tonic in the first place.

So how do we analyze this? Jubilate Deo is in G. This chord with an accidental in it that points to a tonicized D... it's an A major chord. Do we call it a capital II and say it's quittin' time? NO! Because we don't hear it as a capital II chord; we hear it as a dominant chord, and protip: dominant chords are always V-chords. So since D is the fifth of what the actual tonic is (that is to say, G), we notate this A-chord as the fifth of D, or V of V. Notation minutiae vary (some folks will kick you out of their theory parties unless you use an arrow to point from one V chord to the next, while others likewise will kick you out of the theory party for not calling the applied dominant "V/V").

Applied dominants can be used in composition to help orient the listener to where a piece is going. It also just plain spices up a piece. Diatonic sets are wonderful and they keep a listener's mind uncluttered and less confused, but a well-placed accidental for a good reason (like an accidental as a leading tone to a chord within the diatonic set) makes a piece more vivid.

Answer 2

A secondary dominant is literally the dominant of a dominant or a V chord of a V chord. In the key of C major, for example, the Dominant or V chord is G major. In the key of G major, the Dominant or V chord would be D major. In C major, the D chord is usually minor. The appearance of a D major chord in the key of C major could act as a V to the G major chord so that D major is V to the G major and G major is the V chord in C major.

A possible comparison can be made to the family. In a family there is a mother and in her family she also had a mother. That person would be your grandmother but you could also think of her as the mother of your mother. A secondary dominant is the grandmother to the dominant chord in a key.

Answer 3

Hi, it is a really great question. Secondary dominants are non diatonic 5th chords to the diatonic 5ths.

For example if you have a chord progression in the key of C:

|Cmaj7|Dmin7|G7|CMaj7|

All chords are diatonic and numbered I-ii-V7-I

If you change the Dmin7 chord to D7 now we have:

|Cmaj7|D7|G7|CMaj7|

That D7 is non diatonic in the C Major key/scale because it has F# as its major 3rd. However D7 chord has a smooth relation with the next chord G7 which is a diatonic (dominant 7th) in the key of C. We call the D7 chord a secondary dominant and we won't number it II7 (2nd degree) anymore. It is now 5 of 5 (V/V) to the G7. In classical, and jazz composition this is used a lot, even in pop music. Second chord of Queen's famous Bohemian Rhapsody is actually a secondary dominant chord. Jazz improvisers always use secondary dominants to almost over any chord, sometimes regardless of that chord being even played by the rest of the band...