76: Intro to Functional Harmony

When this blog began, we introduced a quite rigid harmonic scheme rather soon. I was tonic, ii was supertonic, iii was submediant, and so on. V goes to I or vi. iii goes to vi goes to ii goes to V.

Now, I’m here to tell you that, in some cases, these rules may be bent slightly. Chords, of course, have a name, a number, and a quality, but, lying underneath that, they all have a function as well. 



• I of course has “tonic function,” since it’s the tonic chord—but so does vi, since it’s the tonic of the relative minor

• V of course has “dominant function,” since it’s the dominant chord, but so does viiº, since it’s exactly equivalent to the top 3 notes of a V7

• ii and IV have “pre-dominant function.” 

• iii appears very rarely, and, depending on the circumstances, can have arguably either tonic or dominant function, exercising both of those much more weakly than the chords listed in the dedicated bullet points for those functions

 What matters in functional harmony is how the chord behaves and where it feels correctly placed, in terms of substitutions that work whenever you want them to, much more than the rigid rules of progressions that must go from one place to another. 

If you start from that rigidity, get comfortable in it, and then learn these relationships and why the substitutions work, then you’ll realize that the originally rigid framework isn’t rigid at all, and in fact allows for an unimaginably large universe of color which you can explore through using (or not) any of these possible substitutions. Having spent so much time in rigid places, this can take some time to get used to, but once you wrap your head around each function and why it exists, you’ll really feel it’s much easier to be creative. This doesn’t replace or contradict any of the rules you’ve always know—it merely serves as an extension. 


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