5609 / 18210 · Workshop 39 — “Watermelon Man”: Blues-Funk Vocabulary, Dominant Vamps, Riffs as Harmony, and Making Repetition Feel Inevitable Instead of Boring← prev⊞ allnext →
39.39How do you tell which is which?
Not from chord quality alone.
From:
- tonal center
- bass/root history
- form
- where the chord goes
F7: tonic dominant.
C7: functional dominant.
Again, context determines function.