Harmony
Borrowed Chords: Modal Mixture in Practice
Mixture borrows chords from the parallel mode. What the common borrowed chords do to a phrase, how they resolve, and where labelling fails.
Borrowed chord
A chord taken from the parallel major or minor key, such as iv or ♭VI in a major key, which adds colour without changing the key.
Also called: Mixture chord, Chord from the parallel key
A borrowed chord is a chord taken from the parallel key, the major or minor key with the same tonic. In C major, the chord F minor, iv, is borrowed from C minor, and so are A♭ major (♭VI) and E♭ major (♭III). A borrowed chord keeps the home tonic but changes the colour, usually from bright to dark. The most common example is iv in major, as in a plagal close from F minor to C major. Because the chord is borrowed rather than modulated to, the key does not change. The borrowed chord keeps its function in the home key, so the minor iv moves as a subdominant would. Borrowed chords are common in nineteenth-century music, in popular music and in jazz.
Related terms
- Modal mixtureThe use of chords or scale degrees from the parallel mode within a passage, usually minor material in a major key, to add colour.
- Neapolitan chordA major triad on the lowered second scale degree, usually in first inversion as ♭II6, which typically moves to the dominant.
- ChromaticismThe use of pitches outside the key's diatonic scale, such as accidentals and chromatic chords, for colour and tension.
- Roman numeral analysisA method of labelling chords by scale degree: upper case for major, lower case for minor, and symbols for quality and inversion.