AndyBass Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 Okay this has been doing my head in for weeks (on and off). Ed Friedland's "Building Walking Basslines" says the following: "when the root motion between two chords is dominant, the 5th of the first chord acts as an upper scale approach to the next chord". He then uses a transition from F7 to Bb7 as an example. Please help me understand this! I'm fine with more complex concepts in the book but this just doesn't make sense to me. What is "dominant root motion"? (Ed helpfully throws in such terms without any prior mention). It can't mean transitioning from the tonic chord to the root of its dominant as the example shows a I-IV not a I-V. The statement seems to suggest that as long as you're moving from one chord to the chord a 4th above it, then the 5th of the first chord is an upper scale approach to the next. Well that's pretty obvious, but where does "dominant" come into that, aside from using the 5th as an approach? Is it just a very confusing way of stating a very obvious concept, or am I missing the key to understanding this properly? Please help it's driving me nuts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveFry Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 The F7 is the dominant of the Bb . The root motion between the two chords is like a V to I , dominant to tonic . Similarly a iii - vi - ii - V - I progression is just a series of dominant root motions . HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyBass Posted May 13, 2014 Author Share Posted May 13, 2014 ...and it all becomes clear. Much appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.