The Major V in a Minor Key

A major chord or dominant seventh on the fifth degree of a minor key. The natural minor scale only builds a minor v there, so the raised seventh inside the chord is what the reader flags.

The rule, as the reader applies it

  1. In a key whose tonic chord is minor: a major chord (a triad or a dominant seventh) a fifth above the tonic, with at least one note outside the key.

Where it fires: two times in one line

Every line in this site’s corpus where the major V in a minor key fires: the line, the key it is read in, the chords the move covers and their numerals.
Line Read in Chords Numerals Line from
Am Dm E7 F Dm E7 Am A minor E7 V7 constructed test case
Am Dm E7 F Dm E7 Am A minor E7 V7 constructed test case

The move as declared here was read from Harmonic minor scale, “Harmony” (Wikipedia), which prints it as V in A minor: E–G#–B, where the natural scale gives E–G–B.

Spotting it

The rule looks at one chord in a key whose tonic chord is minor: a major triad or a dominant seventh whose root sits a fifth above the tonic, with at least one note outside the key. The network's minor key is the natural minor, whose own chord on the fifth degree is minor. In A minor that is E minor, spelled E, G and B; the major chord E, spelled E, G# and B, carries the raised seventh degree, and the fit column names the G# on its row.

In the table

Its numeral is V, or V7 for E7. In Am Dm E7 F Dm E7 Am the E7 appears twice and is flagged both times: once before F and once before the closing A minor. The first of those also fires the deceptive arrival, on the F. Am E Am is the move with nothing around it: the tonic, the major V and the tonic again.

What is not flagged

A minor v is the key's own chord: Am Dm Em Am reads in A minor with E minor as v and nothing outside, and the move stays silent. In a major key the chord on the fifth degree is major already, and the rule, which asks for a minor tonic chord, does not look for it there.

The key comes first

The move is only as good as the reading of the key. A line that holds the major V but never states its tonic chord can tie with other keys, and the page names every tied key above the table; the move is flagged only in a reading whose tonic chord is minor.