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8. Glossary
- Diatonic — a chord or note that belongs naturally to a given key (built only from that key’s 7 notes).
- Triad — a 3-note chord built by stacking two thirds on top of a root.
- Roman numeral — a label (I, ii, iii…) for a chord’s position in the key, capital = major, lowercase = minor, ° = diminished.
- Borrowed chord — a chord pulled in from the parallel minor/major key, not naturally diatonic.
- Secondary dominant — a temporary “V chord” of a scale degree other than 1, used to create extra pull toward that degree.
- Modulation — the song changing to a new key partway through.
- Relative minor — the minor key that shares the exact same 7 notes/chords as a given major key (e.g., A minor is the relative minor of C major).
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