In this lecture, J. Anthony Allen wraps up the second semester of a typical American college music theory curriculum. He shifts the analytical focus from labeling individual chords to recognizing larger chord-group patterns called sequences, emphasizing the move from reading "words" to reading "sentences" in harmony. The class begins with an in‑depth look at harmonic sequences, especially the powerful fifth sequence, and explains how such patterns relate to concepts of tonicization and modulation. Allen then transitions to a comprehensive treatment of secondary dominants, clarifying their various functions, how to identify them (including spotting leading tones), and how they can be used in analysis. He illustrates these ideas with concrete examples, such as an E‑major chord functioning as V of vi and a half‑diminished ii chord in D major, demonstrating the practical application of these advanced harmonic tools.
Chapters
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Music Theory Part 12. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Music Theory Part 12. So in this class, very exciting. We are going to finish what is typically my second semester of college of music theory. So we're going to get through everything that you do in your second semester. In the US System of music theory in college, there are four semesters, usually total. So we're not at the end. We're actually only at the halfway point. This is a huge, huge topic. I mean, people get PhDs in music theory, right? So the typical music music major in the American system has to have four semesters of music theory. And this wraps up semester number two. So in this class, we're going to be talking about sequences. We're going to start off talking about sequences, spend a lot of time on sequences. That's kind of like patterns. And what we're going to start to see here is the way we analyze music theory less literally, right? We're getting less literal. And what that means is not chord, chord, chord, and putting a label on every single chord, but looking at bigger patterns of chords, groups of chords, and maybe coming up with an analysis that makes more sense for how the whole thing is working in kind of bigger chunks. It's kind of like we've been reading words up till now, and now we're going to start reading sentences, right? Like, that's kind of how sequences work, not to be confused with, like, sentences and things that we talked about in phrasing. And then after phrasing, we're going to talk about secondary dominance. This is something that we've talked a tiny bit about here and there in some of the other classes. But in this one, we're going to get deep into it and really explain what they are and how to use them. Secondary dominance is a broad term for a couple different things. And we're going to go over all of those in the second half of this class. So hope you're ready to dive in. This is a good class. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm pretty happy with it. So let's dive in and get started. Sa. You know, it can be a sequence consisting of just the melody, where the only melodic thing that's happening here or the only sequential thing that's happening here is the melody. That's not what we have here because we have this accompaniment in it. Okay? So it's not just the melody. Fifth sequence, that's what we're looking at here. And that's going to be the first big harmonic sequence that we're going to look at. This has been called the strongest progression in tonal music. Meaning. So we're saying, okay, congratulations, A, you are now tonic. And then by the next chord we're saying no, okay, we're taking that back. That's tonicization. Very brief change. However, what we're starting to get into is modulation. Now modulation is what's going on here. What's my chord is the triad, so I'm on an E major chord. All makes good sense because A minor here, the 5 of that is E major so we're just on a five of six here. Okay. One thing you can do is just spot that leading tone, G sharp, our key signature to B flat. I'm going to put that in there just so that we see it a little more explicitly. So this is B flat, so that gets us a half diminished chord built on two because it's built on E, so in the key of D.
