Borrow Chords and Expand Your Songwriting
Are your chord progressions sounding stale or repetitive? Are you looking for new sounds?
Borrowing chords is a great way to expand your options. And though a little bit of theory is helpful, you can make this a normal part of your practice by just following a few simple guidelines.
In this post, we’ll explore what it means to borrow chords and how this can add color and moments of meaning to your songs. Then we’ll look at two simple exercises to do just that (no deep understanding of the theory required).
What does it mean to borrow chords?
When you sit down to write a song, it’s useful to know which chords are likely to sound good together. If you’re writing in a major key, there are six chords that will probably “just work”.
Using the Roman numeral system, we can write these chords as:
I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi
In the key of C major, these are:
C - Dm - Em - F - G - Am I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi
I’ve left out the diminished vii° from this list because it can be difficult to use well.
There are endless songs you could write with these six chords alone (as explored in this series), and I recommend getting a feel for them by practicing them on a regular basis.
But there is so much more color you could be adding to your songs!
Let’s contrast these major key chords with the chords in the parallel minor key. Two keys (or modes) are “parallel” if they begin on the same note. So the parallel minor key for the key of C major is the key of C minor.
A minor key has a very different sequence of chords that work well together:
Cm - Ddim - Eb - Fm - Gm - Ab - Bb i - ii° - bIII - iv - v - bVI - bVII
If you compare the chords from major and minor, you’ll notice that they are all different:
Major: I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi - vii° Minor: i - ii° - bIII - iv - v - bVI - bVII
When you’re writing in a major key, you can borrow any of these new chords from the parallel minor.
Borrowing just means using the chord, and in theory you can use them anywhere in your progression.
But to maintain a mostly “major feel” you probably shouldn’t start your progression with a borrowed chord, and it will be trickier to end on one (though bVII, for example, commonly leads back to I, acting as a substitute for the dominant V).
Borrowing chords is also known as “modal interchange” or “mixing modes”, and you can in theory borrow from any mode. But in this post, we’ll just focus on borrowing chords from natural minor.
A simpler way to choose which chord to borrow
Those six main chords in the major key are pretty easy to play around with, and not that difficult to memorize. The best part is that whichever one you choose, it will probably somehow “sound right”.
But things aren’t as simple with borrowed chords.
Particularly if you’re new to the idea, it can be overwhelming to look at that list of seven additional chords and figure out what to do with them.
So I’m going to show you a framework for making your choices easier.
For reasons related to the relationship between the modes, there is a way to break these borrowed chords up into chords that are “closer” or “further” from the major key.
I’ve labeled these groups with the mode that contains each group’s chords. Note that Mixolydian contains the chords in Group 1, Dorian contains the chords in Groups 1 and 2, and Aeolian (minor) contains the chords from all three groups.
Group 1: bVII and v (Mixolydian) Group 2: bIII and i (Dorian) Group 3: bVI and iv (Aeolian/minor)
Keep in mind that you don’t need to understand modes to use this framework.
Using the borrowed chord groups
In a way, Group 1 is closest to the major key. This means it can be easier to borrow the chords in that group and make it sound “right”.
As you explore borrowing chords, you can begin by picking one from Group 1. Once you have a feel for that, you can try Group 2 and then 3.
Whether or not it’s “easier” to borrow from the closer groups probably depends on your experience and your ear. But you can also use this framework to help predict the effect that borrowing a chord will create.
The further the group from major, the more likely the chord will have a minor/dark/hard/<insert your favored term here> effect.
As with everything in music, this depends on context. So experiment!
How borrowed chords create “meaningful moments”
As you’ll discover by trying it out, borrowing chords adds new colors to your songs. But it can also create moments in the music that stand out as “meaningful”.
Meaning in music is tied to expectations. If every chord you hear is exactly the one you expect, then none will stand out. But if a chord goes against your expectations in an interesting way, it can create a special moment in a song.
Imagine you are improvising a melody over just chords from the major key (from those six chords discussed at the beginning). Whether you know it or not, you’re likely using only notes from the major key in your improvised melody.
But if you add a borrowed chord to your progression and improvise a melody over that, there’s a chance you will naturally sing or play a note from outside the major scale.
That’s because borrowed chords include notes from outside the major scale. Even if you know nothing about theory, you will probably hear those notes stand out.
If your melody borrows a note, that note will sound colorful and potentially stand out as meaningful. You can use this to strong effect.
For example, you can mold your lyrics so that an important or powerful word (or phrase) happens over the borrowed chord. You might find that you do this naturally as well, without even thinking about it.
In short, borrowing chords can open up new possibilities in a number of exciting ways, whether that’s for harmonies, melodies, or lyrics. And that’s true whether or not you understand the theory.
Exercise for borrowing chords
Now that we’ve seen what it means to borrow chords and what some of the interesting effects can be, let’s look at an exercise for actually doing it.
In this exercise, begin by choosing a major key. Let’s look at four options:
I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi
F major: F - Gm - Am - Bb - C - Dm
C major: C - Dm - Em - F - G - Am
G major: G - Am - Bm - C - D - Em
D major: D - Em - F#m - G - A - Bm
Pick one of these keys and explore different combinations of chords in that key. If you are new to this, I’d recommend starting your progressions on the “home chord” (for example, C in the key of C major).
Here’s a very common example using chords from C major:
I - IV - vi - V
C - F - Am - G
Once you come up with a chord progression you like, start borrowing. Here are the options by key (listed in order of the groups described above):
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
--------- --------- ---------
bVII - v - bIII - i - bVI - iv
F major: E - Cm - Ab - Fm - Db - Bbm
C major: Bb - Gm - Eb - Cm - Ab - Fm
G major: F - Dm - Bb - Gm - Eb - Cm
D major: C - Am - F - Dm - Bb - Gm
You don’t need to, but you might find it easier to start by borrowing chords closer to the left of these lists.
Let’s look at two ways to add borrowed chords to your initial progression.
First, try substituting a borrowed chord for one of your chords. In our example, we could substitute the bVII for the V. Here’s our original progression again:
| I | IV | vi | V |
| C | F | Am | G |
Here it is with the bVII substituted for the V:
| I | IV | vi | bVII |
| C | F | Am | Bb |
Try lots of ideas and combinations. And when you notice substitutions you like, write them down! You can add those to your list of techniques to use in the future.
We’ll explore substitution in more detail in future posts, but this exercise is not about learning common substitutions. It’s about experimenting and getting a feel for your options. Just try things out!
Second, instead of substituting a chord, let’s add a borrowed chord to our progression. For example, we can add the bIII to our second bar:
| I | bIII IV | vi | V |
| C | Eb F | Am | G |
Try out different timings for these added chords. You can shorten how long you play your existing chords to fit them in. Or you can make your progression longer. There are many options here.
Once you have a feel for both of these techniques, try bringing in two borrowed chords.
Here’s what happens if we combine our ideas from above:
| I | bIII IV | vi | bVII |
| C | Eb F | Am | Bb |
And here’s an example bringing in two completely different borrowed chords. This time we’re choosing iv and bVI from the far right of our list above. Notice if you think they create a more minor feel than our last example:
| I | iv | vi bVI | V |
| C | Fm | Am Ab | G |
I recommend improvising melodies over these progressions, and exploring how adding or substituting chords changes the shape of the melodies you come up with.
Don’t worry if it’s difficult at first. Trial and error is all it takes to land on interesting combinations.
Record your results, and take note of any chord changes that sound good to you. These exercises can really help add to your songwriting vocabulary.
Borrowing chords in a nutshell
When you write a song in a major key, you have a whole world of chords from outside that key to borrow. This can add color to your songs, create moments of interest and meaning, and broaden your options.
Every chord in the parallel minor key is available to you, and we’ve seen one way to rank these choices.
You don’t need to understand the theory to use these ideas. Keep a list of your options with your practice materials and see what you can discover.
There is actually much more to borrowing than we’ve explored here. For example, in future posts we’ll explore how to borrow from other modes than just natural minor.
But for now, just adding these exercises to your regular practice is one great way to expand your songwriting.