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subdominant

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In music, the subdominant is the fourth tonal degree () of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance below the tonic as the dominant is above the tonicin other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdominant. It also happens to be the note one step below the dominant. In the movable do solfège system, the subdominant note is sung as fa.

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{{Image frame|content= { \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \relative c' { \clef treble \time 7/4 c4 d e \once \override NoteHead.color = #red f g \once \override NoteHead.color = #red a b \time 2/4 \once \override NoteHead.color = #red c2 \bar "||" \time 4/4 1 \bar "||" } }

{ \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \relative c' { \clef treble \time 7/4 c4 d es \once \override NoteHead.color = #red f g \once \override NoteHead.color = #red aes bes \time 2/4 \once \override NoteHead.color = #red c2 \bar "||" \time 4/4 1 \bar "||" } } |width=310|caption=The scale and subdominant triad in C major (top) and C minor (bottom).}}

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “subdominant” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.