Tonic Chords

Tonic Chords

Tonic Chords are chords of rest or resolution.
In contemporary harmony, tonic is one of three functional harmony categories.

Functional Harmony
Tonic	Sub-Dominant chords of movement	Dominant chords of tension moving to tonic

Tonic chords avoid the use of the fourth scale-degree (fa) in their construction. Tonic chords also usually contain or support the tonic note (do). The exception is the IIIm⁷ chord, which does not support the first scale-degree (do), and thus is considered a weak tonic chord.

Diatonic Tonic Chords
Primary		Relative		(Mediant)
I C		VIm Am		(IIIm) (Em)
Modal Interchange Tonic Chords must support any existing melody
Major Seventh	Minor Seventh		Seventh		Minor Seventh Flat-Five
bIII^maj7 bVI^maj7 Eb^maj7 Ab^maj7	Im⁷ bIIIm⁷ Cm⁷ Ebm⁷		II⁷ I⁷ D⁷ C⁷ ------------ bIII⁷ bVI⁷ Eb⁷ Ab⁷		#IVm7^b5 IIIm7^b5 F#m7^b5 Em7^b5 ------------ VIm7^b5 Im7^b5 Am7^b5 Cm7^b5