From the course: The Songwriter's Toolkit: Learning from the Masters

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Use the tonic chord in an unexpected place

Use the tonic chord in an unexpected place - Sibelius Tutorial

From the course: The Songwriter's Toolkit: Learning from the Masters

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Use the tonic chord in an unexpected place

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- [Instructor] The concept of the tonic is one of the foundations of western harmony. I cover it thoroughly in my music theory for songwriters: the fundamentals course. The easiest way to define the tonic, is as the note deemed the beginning of the octave in which the scale exists, as well as the beginning of the interval pattern of the scale. The tonic is thought of as the home of a key, or for the sake of this course, a song or section of a song. Typically the tonic is used as the starting and/or ending point of a given section of a song. This is frequently the case in the harmony of a song's chorus. It's also common place to see the tonic used as the final chord of a song. That said, there are lots of songs that use the tonic chord in an unexpected place in their chord progression. Shifting where the tonic chord lands in a progression can give a song an off-kilter unexpected feel. A couple examples of songs where the tonic chord is in an unusual place, are Sia's Chandelier, and…

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