Borrowed Chord
A borrowed chord is a chord from a parallel mode, providing unique color and emotional depth to a progression by momentarily shifting the home base. In C major, an example of a borrowed chord could be substituting a C minor chord in place of the typical I chord, temporarily giving the song a minor feel. The use of borrowed chords results in what is called modal mixture, and since a borrowed chord is built from a different scale than the song’s primary mode, it contains notes outside the key of the song.
A chord is borrowed when it is not one of the basic chords built from the scale corresponding to the song’s key.
Below, you can see and listen to the basic chords in C major:
The chords above are what you would find in songs written in the key of C major, but if the song wanted to borrow a chord from the minor mode, it could use the chords built from the C minor scale. These chords are shown below:
One common use of a borrowed chord is the minor iv chord rather than a major IV. In Hooktheory’s notation, when a chord is borrowed, the mode it is borrowed from is indicated below the name in parentheses. In this case, (min) is written below the chord since it is borrowed from the minor mode.
Other songs that use borrowed chords
Click on the following songs to see their chords and melody in the TheoryTab database.
