Dominant and Parallel
Where the wheel rests, and where it visits
The chord wheel always shows six chords. Which six depends on where you're holding it. Home is where the wheel rests: the key's own chords. Dominant and Parallel are visits - held on a bumper, gone when you let go.
Home
Home is the key's diatonic triads, minus the diminished one - six chords drawn from the key and nothing else, arranged with the tonic at the top. It's the wheel from the previous page, and it's where every visit returns.
Dominant: hold the right bumper
Hold R1 and every wedge becomes the dominant seventh of the Home chord in the same position. Where C sits at Home, G7 sits in Dominant. Where Am sits, E7 sits.
Stick position means the same thing in both palettes - it names the target - so the gesture is: point at the chord you're heading to, strum the tension, release the bumper, strum the arrival.
Two consequences:
- Minor keys get a real dominant. Natural minor has no leading tone; the Dominant visit does. In D Minor the tonic position holds A7, raised third included.
- Home stays consonant. The seventh chords are only ever one held bumper away, and resolving them is releasing the bumper.
Parallel: hold the left bumper
Hold L1 and every wedge becomes the Home chord in the same position with its quality flipped - major turns minor, minor turns major. Same root, same place on the wheel, the other colour. From C Major's wheel, C becomes Cm, Dm becomes D, Em becomes E.
This is where borrowed chords live - the minor iv in a major song, the major IV in a minor one - held on a bumper instead of written into the key. Point at the chord you know, hold L1, and play its shadow.
Held, not switched
Both visits are momentary. Releasing the bumper returns the wheel to Home. Hold both and the newer press wins; release it and the older one is still there.
Chords already ringing are never altered by a visit. The palettes decide what the next strum plays, nothing more.
Each palette has a second face, one more hold away - see Extended chords.