Forum: music.stackexchange.com
Tags: <theory><chords><chord-theory><chord-progressions>
Title: theory - D major in F major chord progression?
Question: I am taking a music theory online course and there is an example I don't understand. The chord progression is:  F Bb C F D Gm C7 FMaj7  The first 4 bar is just I-IV-V-I and the last three bar is II-V-I. Question is what brings D here?? It is neither a diatonic chord in F major nor F minor.

Answers:
sents: text: The D chord is acting like the V of the Gm chord, and is followed directly by the Gm chord.
text: The F# in the D chord is acting like a leading tone into the G of the Gm, essentially "tonicizing" the Gm chord and making it a temporary tonic chord before moving on in the progression.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/47856/Heather S.
score: 8
sents: text: The D-g-C7-F is just a ii=
text: V7-I ending preceded by the (local) dominant of the ii chord.
text: The analysis is often given by V/ii-ii-V7-I.
text: (Or is some books, VI-ii-V7-I.)
text: Any major or minor chord may be preceded by its own dominant (or a few other chords) without changing the essence of the progression.
text: The fundamental bass (D-G-C-F) falls by fifths so sounds good.
text: With a slight change, one could have vi-ii-V7-I which is common from at least the Baroque era to today.
text: The two progressions have different sound (or color) but are basically the same harmony.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/23838/ttw
score: 2
sents: text: It has been said that the D is acting as a 5 chord to the Gmin.
text: This is a common device.
text: D is the relative minor to Fmaj (clearly the key).
text: Tunes will often put a dominant seventh chord on the vi in a progression.
text: Case in point, any Bebop Rhythm Changes: Anthropology, Oleo, etc.
text: Cycle extensions work this way by treating a chord in the progression as a temporary I and placing its V7 or a ii-V before it to create resolution.
text: In Jazz this is sometimes overdone, filling up measure after measure with 4 chords.
text: The effect can be interesting.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/50691/ggcg
score: 2
sents: text: It's only 'theory', but as Heather states, it's the dominant of Gm (V/ii).
text: Another theory states that chords can be 'borrowed' from parallel keys .
text: It's a little convoluted, but key F has Dm as its relative key, which has a parallel key of D major.
text: Thus it fits!
text: And cycles of fourths/fifths have been used for centuries.
text: Usually getting back, eventually, to the root.
text: How far away from that root the 'modulation' starts varies, but this sequence is quite short compared with others.
text: As Laurence says ( and rightly keeps saying)
text: we spend maybe too much time trying to justify everything.
text: Maybe that's just human nature, but in this case, the sequence works, like it does in hundreds of other songs, so by now, it's simply de facto.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/2808/Tim
score: 1
sents: text: It used to be a very common progression in popular music, a "circle of fifths" starting from as far away from the tonic as you like, and working back to it.
text: In F, the longest sequence would be F E A
text: D G C F. Add 7th's, or change some of the chords to minor, as you like, but the first chord after the tonic is almost always major or a (dominant) 7th.
text: The chord after the F (whether E, A, or D) comes as a (slight) surprise, because of the major 3rd of the chord (and the 5th of the E chord) are not in the scale of F, but the sequence of dominant-tonic resolutions gets it back home safely.
text: You can find lots of examples "before rock" -
text: George Formby used it in many songs, for example.
text: And in classical music, it goes back at least as far as Mozart.
text: In the baroque era, similar progressions using minor chords or minor 7ths, staying within the notes of the key, were very common.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/None/
score: 1
sents: text: "It is neither a diatonic chord in F major nor F minor."
text: And why should it be?
text: There's no requirement or virtue in using only diatonic chords.
text: I'm slightly surprised it's plain D,
text: Gm... rather than D7, Gm7...
text: But it's still a standard 'cycle of 5ths' turn-around.
text: Add it to your musical tool-box!
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/17003/Laurence Payne
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
The D chord is acting like the V of the Gm chord, and is followed directly by the Gm chord. The F# in the D chord is acting like a leading tone into the G of the Gm, essentially "tonicizing" the Gm chord and making it a temporary tonic chord before moving on in the progression.
The D chord is acting like the V of the Gm chord,