Leaving the Wedge


(entry for 1/17/2025)


Last post we covered the fact that there are six different chords you can use in any major key, without leaving that key. For example, if you are in the key of B-flat major, you can visit the IV chord (E-flat major), the V chord (F major), the ii chord (c minor), the vi chord (g minor), or the iii chord (d minor). You can do all this without leaving the key you are in, and you can visit any of the six in any order without violating any rules. Ordinarily, you will end on the I chord, and just as ordinarily you will usually precede that I chord with either a IV or a V chord (usually the V), but there are exceptions. Some popular folk songs end on the V chord for example.

We also mentioned that most simple songs are either two-chord or three-chord, and when the song falls into that category, the two chords in a two-chord song are almost always the V and the I. In most three-chord songs, the three chords are the IV, and V, and the I.

Now we come to four-chord songs, and there are two different kinds. One common kind has the vi chord as the fourth chord, and in this case we haven’t left the wedge. However, there is another very common kind of four-chord song, and in this case there is some confusion. For example, lets say we are in the key of C major (no sharps, no flats), and it’s a four-chord song. Instead of using the vi (the a-minor chord), many songwriters will introduce the D major chord, resolving it to the G chord before going elsewhere. But there is no D major in the wedge! So how do we explain this?

The Nashville musician will say that we’ve gone to the 2-major chord. There’s only one problem with this: there’s no such thing. The two-chord (ii or 2) is always minor, no matter what major key we’re in. And worse yet, in a minor key the two-chord is not in the wedge at all! (This will be explained in a later post, on minor keys.) So, sorry, Nashville, but you’ve over-simplified things. It’s easier that way I suppose, but you’re wrong, all the same!

Instead, we have to realize that when this happens we have temporarily left the wedge. The D chord in this case is the V of the G chord, and in turn the G chord is the V of the C chord, which is the key we’re in. So we have stepped one notch out of the wedge in the clockwise direction, and the D chord is called the V of V, because it’s the V chord of the key’s V chord. (Try explaining this to the average Nashville musician, and they will stare at you like you’ve lost your mind, but that’s the only real explanation for what has happened.)

The reason we have to consider this as having ‘left the wedge’ is that the V of V chord always resolves to the V chord of the key we’re in. Remember, we said that when you’re in the wedge you can go to any chord in the wedge in any order without leaving the key? Well, if the V of V were merely a substitute for one of the wedge chords, as Nashville claims, then you could follow a D major chord in the key of C major with any other of the six available chords. You could follow it with an e minor chord, for example. But this never actually happens. In the key of C, if you hit a D major chord, it’s always followed by the G chord. Always. So you’ve left the wedge and ‘stepped’ back. (We’ll talk about this principle some more when we cover Substitutions in the next post.)

There are many, many songs that illustrate this leaving the wedge behavior. One example is the US National Anthem. When you sing ‘Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s ear-ly light,’ the syllable ‘-ly’ is a V of V chord, no matter what key you’re in. It immediately resolves to the V chord on the next syllable, ‘light,’ but there’s no question you got there by going through the V of V. (Nashville would call it 2-major, but as we’ve said, there’s no such thing.) 

A four-chord song that uses the V of V has just as legitimate a claim to being a four-chord song as one that uses the vi chord. In fact, the National Anthem uses both! So it’s really a five-chord song. But this is unusual. Most songs that use the V of V are four-chord songs.

The pop tune Nola is a good example of this. So are the songs “That’ll Be the Day” by Buddy Holly and “Hey, Good Lookin’” by Hank Williams.

We’ve already mentioned that fact that there are in fact no absolute ‘rules’ in music theory, and attampts to impose rules on such people as J. S. Bach are silly. But there is a category of music theory that seems to impose rules, and it has to do with how we use the Circle of 5ths.

The ‘Rule’ is that you can ‘leap’ out of the wedge clockwise as far as you want to go, so long as you come back one notch at a time. But you can leave counter-clockwise only step by step.

A great example of this is the song ‘Red Roses for a Blue Lady.’ If you’re doing it in the key of C major, the first time you sing the word ‘blue’ you have leaped all the way to B major, which is just about as big a leap as you can do. (Noon to 5 o’clock.) Then you ‘walk’ back, one step at a time. (The B major is followed by E major, etc.) Along the way, you will use multiple examples of something called ‘substitution,’ and that will be the subject of our next post.


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