---
title: 'Borrowed Chords Explained | A Simple 2-Step Method for Songwriters'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=ODp47kH6l30'
video_id: 'ODp47kH6l30'
date: 2026-07-31
duration_sec: 1099
---

# Borrowed Chords Explained | A Simple 2-Step Method for Songwriters

> Source: [Borrowed Chords Explained | A Simple 2-Step Method for Songwriters](https://youtube.com/watch?v=ODp47kH6l30)

## Summary

The video explains a simple two-step method for borrowing chords from outside the diatonic key to dramatically expand your harmonic palette. It covers the basics of diatonic chords, the 'home and away' tension principle, and demonstrates the technique with well-known songs like 'Dock of the Bay,' 'Creep,' 'Best Part,' and 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.' Practical tips on chord order, duration, and inversions help songwriters apply the theory directly.

### Key Points

- **Why Borrowed Chords Matter** [00:01] — If you're tired of the same chord sequences, this two-step method gives you access to 10 times as many chords and helps create surprise and contrast in your songs.
- **Diatonic Chords in Any Major Key** [00:40] — The chords in any major key are arranged as I major, ii minor, iii minor, IV major, V major, vi minor, vii diminished. This diatonic system applies to all 12 keys in Western music.
- **Roman Numeral Notation** [01:09] — Uppercase Roman numerals denote major chords and lowercase denote minor chords; this is important for chord substitution later.
- **Home and Away Principle** [02:11] — The I chord is the tonic or home chord; all others are away chords that create tension, resolved when returning to home.
- **The Problem with Staying Diatonic** [04:01] — Diatonic chords sound good together but can become predictable and cliché; surprise is crucial for keeping a listener's attention.
- **Step 1: Change Chord Quality** [04:30] — Take one of the seven diatonic chords and change its quality (e.g., minor to major, major to dominant 7). The video focuses on major, minor, dominant 7, and diminished chords.
- **Example: Dock of the Bay** [05:36] — The song uses a 1-3-4-2 progression in the key of G, changing the 3 and 2 chords from minor to major (B minor to B major and A minor to A major).
- **Example: Creep by Radiohead** [07:34] — In the key of G, the song moves from the I chord to a major III, then to a IV, and changes the IV to a minor iv (C major to C minor).
- **Three Practical Considerations** [08:22] — When using borrowed chords, focus on the order of chords, the duration of chords, and the inversions being played.
- **Key Consideration: Chord Order** [09:00] — Changing the order of chords changes how each chord is perceived. A borrowed G minor placed in the fourth position sounds different than in the second position of a I-IV-vi-V progression.
- **Key Consideration: Duration** [10:41] — Holding a borrowed chord (e.g., E7) longer builds tension and draws attention; using it briefly only colors the progression.
- **Key Consideration: Inversions** [12:23] — Using inversions can smooth out a bold borrowed chord or make it stand out subtly; experiment with different inversions.
- **Step 2: Build Chords on Remaining Notes** [13:19] — There are 12 notes in Western music; seven are diatonic. Use the other five notes as root notes for new chords (major, minor, dominant, diminished).
- **Example: Best Part by Daniel Caesar** [14:01] — In D major, the progression uses Dmaj7, A minor 7 (a V chord with changed quality), G major 7, and a borrowed Bb major 7 built on a non-diatonic note.
- **Example: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds** [15:13] — In the key of A, the song uses A, A/G (a I chord with flat 7), and a flat-six chord to create chromatic, dreamy movement.
- **The Common Alternating Pattern** [16:11] — All four example songs follow: I chord → borrowed chord in 2nd position → diatonic chord → borrowed chord in 4th position. This alternation is a proven way to incorporate borrowed chords.
- **The Complete System** [17:03] — Seven diatonic chords plus chords built on the five remaining notes gives you a comprehensive system to access any chord you want.

### Conclusion

Borrowed chords are a powerful way to add surprise, contrast and tension to your songwriting. With the two-step method and attention to order, duration and inversions, diatonic theory becomes a flexible creative tool.

## Transcript

their chords and sick of using the same old sequences over and over again then this video is for you because I'm going to show you a way to access 10 times as many chords as you're currently using in two simple steps and what I'm really
going to focus on is how to practically use borrowed Chords chords that are in these are the chords that often jump out and grab our attention the moments that create surprise and Delight as you're listening through a song and
help you create more cont trust take your listeners on a more interesting journey by spotlighting key moments throughout your song and ultimately give you the tools to take your songwriting in any direction you choose so let's
start by getting really clear on identifying which chords are inside the key before we turn our attention to those that are outside the key so in any major key the chords are arranged as one major two minor three minor four major
five major six minor seven diminished this is called a diet system and applies to all 12 keys in western music One really important thing to note here is the Roman numerals for a major chord the Roman numerals are uppercase for a minor
important later on when we start substituting chords in and out so these seven chords essentially belong to a family they share the same DNA and in family they share the same DNA and in the key of C we have C Major D Minor E
the key of C we have C Major D Minor E minor F major G major a minor B diminished and back to C and we can essentially pick any of these chords at random and put together some really lovely sounding chord sequences
songwriters love dionic sequences they really work they really sound fantastic of those chords knowing they'll sound pretty pretty [Music]
good but rather than just jump around randomly ideally what we want to do as songwriters is make deliberate choices with our chords and construct chord progressions with a certain mood that really support The Narrative of Our Song
the key principles with core progressions and that is this idea of Home and Away in any key the one chord is the tonic it is the home chord it is the tonal center of our song all the other chords are Away chords and
different functions really helps us make deliberate choices when choosing our cords for example if we wanted to create a cord progression that had a feeling of being at home and then going away and staying away for a little while before
returning home we could do it like [Music]
this so when we're playing the C chord because it's the tonic in that key that's when we're at home the rest of the time we're away and those away cords not only give us different textures and colors to paint with they create tension
that can then be resolved when we go back to the home cord if we want to extend or delay the resolution we can simply stay on the Away chords we can like [Music]
[Music] this
went on every time I used another away chord instead of resolving back to the one it increased the tension slightly because it's making the Lista wait for that resolution back to the home cour but regardless of how long the listener
has to wait for the resolution the fact remains that all of those chords go together but they can also sound predictable and cliche so this really is the problem because these chords sound so good together we are unable to create
an element of surprise by staying within the dionic system and the element of surprise is such an important part of songwriting and so crucial to keeping the attention of our listener we really need it in our repertoire and this is
where the two-step borrowed chord method really becomes important step one take one of the seven dionic chords and change the quality of chord now when I say change the quality what I really mean is change the type of
chord so the chords we're going to be using throughout this video are the major chord the minor chord the dominant seven chord and the diminished chord could use we could use augmented chords we could use half diminished chords we
could use Shar 11 chords but as you'll see just focusing on those four common chords is going to explode our options when we start playing around with different chord progressions so if we go back to our dionic sequence and take the
two core the D Minor we can change that D Minor into a D major a D7 or a d diminished we can do the same with the three chord the E minor we can do the
same with the six chord the a minor and we can do the same with the seven chord we can then do the same with the major chords the 1 four and five the c major the F major and the G major we can
change each of those Majors into a minor a dominant seven or a diminished each of those chords now represent the options you have to change the quality of those chords so let's look at some songs that use this technique beautifully and we'll
start with otus readings Dock of the Bay you can see that the song is in the key you can see that the song is in the key of G so the chords in the key of G are G major a minor B minor C Major D major E minor
a minor B minor C Major D major E minor F diminished back to G Dock of the Bay F diminished back to G Dock of the Bay is using a 1 3 4 2 sequence however instead of using 1 3 42 diatonically you can see that the three chord and the two
chord have been changed from minor to Major so we have a sequence of four [Music] chords
them diatonically this is what it sounds [Music] [Music] like we're so used to the original that
that actually sounds weird even though those chords All belong together in the make that when we're using step one when we're changing the quality of the chord root note it allows us to create sequences of chords that have subtle
variations and aren't too obvious to the ear but they're still obvious enough to create an element of surprise this is in contrast to step two which we'll look at a little bit later on because that technique really does allow us to create
a lot of movement and create some fairly unusual sounds and I've created a free pdf showing these two steps laying out all the different chord options sequences for each of the example songs I've gone through so if you're
interested check out the link below another great example of this technique is the song Creep by radio head again we're in the key of G and you can see that like Dock of the Bay we have the one chord going to a major three then to
a four but in this case we then switch to a minor four so in this chord sequence we're getting the four chord appearing diatonically as it naturally would and then the quality of that chord is being changed to the
is being changed to the [Music]
minor now before we move on I want to talk about some key considerations when practically writing core progressions because what I'm really showing you with this two-step borrowed chord method is how to get access to essentially all the
chords that are available and having access to all the chords is great and it gives you lots of different colors to play with however we've still got to do the job as songwriters of finding the appropriate chords to the song we're
hopefully help you take the theory and really put it into practice the three are the order of your chords the duration of your chords and the inversions that you're playing so first let's talk about the order of your
chords because when we're writing a chord progression we don't hear any of these chords in isolation we hear them as a sequence and so changing the order of the chords changes the context of each chord individually it changes the
way we perceive each chord both in sound and function so for example let's take the simple chord progression c f a minor [Music]
G it's a 1 4 65 now what I want to do is Target the five chord the G and change the quality of that chord to a G minor so now we get [Music]
this now because it's in the fourth position we hear three dionic chords in a row which feels quite stable and predictable then when that fourth chord comes that G minor it really jumps out at us it really has quite an effect
especially because it then leads us back round to the one chord however if we take that borrow chord and now put it in the second position the whole sequence sounds [Music]
different so picking a four chord sequence and then changing one of them to a borrowed chord is a great exercise but the real value of that exercise is sequence and feeling the difference when the borrowed chord appears in different
positions secondly let's talk about duration duration really is how long one way that songwriters can really create tension and release tension when putting together a chord sequence for example let's now substitute that G
minor for another borrowed chord let's take the three minor chord the E minor take the three minor chord the E minor and change it to an
E7 now I was playing all of those chords for the same duration if I now hold the E7 The Borrowed chord longer than the rest listen to what rest listen to what [Music]
happens [Music] sequence because I was holding some chords longer than others but what I was
really doing was drawing your attention to that E7 and making you wait and tension which then allows us to relieve the tension by moving on to the F and the a minor in contrast we could really
skip over that E7 and just use use it as a brief coloration in the a brief coloration in the [Music]
sequence so as you're playing around with the order of your chords also consider how long you're holding each cord and how deliberately you want to either increase the tension or relieve the tension as you're moving through the
sequence finally let's talk about inversions now that E7 I'm playing there is a pretty big bold kind of chord and that makes the borrowed chord really jump out of the [Music]
inversion and create a smoother more subtle sound like subtle sound like [Music] [Music] this
will change the way the chord progression sounds and if you really borrow chord that you're putting in the sequence play around with different inversions and see which one has the most striking effect or creates the kind
of sound that you're going for step number two take one of the five remaining notes and make that note the root of a brand new C cord so there are 12 notes in the western music system seven of those notes are dionic to a key
and that leaves five notes left for us to play with what we're now going to do is take those five remaining notes and use them as base notes to build chords off so if we bring our diatonic sequence back up you can see that those five
notes sit in the gaps between the first and the second note the second and the third note the fourth and the fifth the fifth and the sixth the sixth and the seventh now of each of those five notes we can build the same kind of chords as
we've been doing with the dionic notes we can make any of them major minor dominant or diminished a song that demonstrates this nicely is best part by Daniel Caesar and this song is in the key of D so the chords would be D major
key of D so the chords would be D major E minor F minor G major a major B minor C Shar diminished D major now as you can see major 7 to an A Minor 7 so that's a five chord
where the quality of the chord has been changed from major to minor then it goes down to a G major 7 then it goes to this 7 then it goes to this chord the B flat major 7 and that B flat
does not exist in the key of D so that's one of those new bass notes that's been built off [Music]
it [Music] it's a really lovely sound that you hear in a lot of gospel neo soul and R&B another song that demonstrates this principle is Lucy in the Sky with
actually made an entire video on that song which you can check out here where I break down all the chords throughout the different sections but here I just want to focus on the four verse chords and the song's in the key of A so we
and the song's in the key of A so we would have the chords A B minor C D Minor D E F minor gsh diminished back to D E F minor gsh diminished back to a the first chord is the one
chord the second chord is an a over G the one over flat s and that creates essentially a dominant sound so it's going from a one chord to a one dominant
then we get the F minor and then we get this chord the flat six so we have this chromatic the flat six so we have this chromatic [Music]
video you'll see something very interesting you can see that all four of these songs have essentially followed the same pattern they've all started with the one chord they've then gone to a borrowed chord in second position
they've then gone back to a dionic cord and then they've used another borrowed cord in fourth position and this alternating pattern is a tried and tested way to start incorporating borrowed chords into your songwriting
using borrowed chords in this way Keeps The Listener engaged it keeps the song with your own chord progressions try using this patent of one dionic one borrowed chord alternating throughout and play around with the durations and
with so if we come back and review this two-step method and look at the options we've now got to play with the seven dionic cords we start with can all have other chords built off them in this video we've been focusing on major minor
dominant and diminished but of course you can add other types of chords and that will only increase the options you have then we have those remaining five bass notes that we can build chords off what we essentially have is now a system
want but to demonstrate how you might put this into action let me play around with a chord sequence and highlight The Borrowed chords as I put them
the job for all of us is to put it into action and transform it from Theory into a tool that elevates and enhances our songs Happy songwriting