It’s been a long journey, and I hope you’ve enjoyed everything along the way. There’s just time enough to hit a few more vital topics before your final assignments.
Before we get started, I’d like you to consider the following. We all have to go through these basic steps to thoroughly learn something new on the guitar.
- Find a way to learn the new material.
- Work with the new material to gain a degree of fluency (one thing in all keys, all things in one key) on the guitar with solid rhythmic time.
- Play the new material with other musicians.
This course has been designed to help you with the first two stages. With your recordings, you’ve simulated the final step. Further, our approach to presenting this material, with the speed that you’ve been requested to internalize it, should have strengthened your ability to learn other new skills on the guitar quickly.
Here is the chart for "Billy Boy."
Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- demonstrate several new basic chord substitutions
- work with inversions of minor 7(b5) chords
- use chordal inversions to harmonize a melody
- play through a couple of final assignments, wrapping up our work for the course and an opportunity for extra credit!
Chord Substitutions Part 2
It is possible to use all inversions of the substitute chords—often with dramatic results. In an earlier lesson, we worked with substituting:
- minor 7 chords with a major 7 voicing built from the flatted third of the chord, producing a minor 9 color
- major 7 chords with a minor 7 voicing built from the third of the chord, producing a major 9 color
- dominant 7 chords with another dominant 7 voicing a flatted fifth away
Since then, we’ve learned about inversions of all of these chord qualities. Let’s listen to some of the possibilities.
Major 7 Subbing for Minor 7 Voicings
Let’s work with another option for the minor 9 color first. Here are some inversions of major 7 voicings, including a new root position option.
Sub V Options for Dominant 7 (Page 2)
It’s important to know that dominant 7 (5) provides smoother voice leading when using the sub V substitution. Without this subtle alteration, the bass player has to be “in on it” for musical results.
If a bassist plays the root of a G7 while a basic D7 is sounded, the fifth of the D7 (A) sounds extremely dissonant.
The 5 alteration on a dominant chord allows you to use the sub V substitution without producing extreme dissonance. To produce a dominant 7 (5) voicing, move the fifth down a half step on any dominant 7 voicing that you know, for example:
Two More Options for Dominant 7 (Page 3)
This major 7 ( 5) shape is extremely rich in root position.
The same major 7 (5) shape can sound amazingly dramatic over a different bass note, implying some amazingly full sounds. Playing the voicing, built from the 7 of a dominant chord, implies a dominant 9/13 sound. Built from the third of a dominant chord, the implied sound is a dominant 7 with 9 and 5. These are “rootless” voicings, producing terrific colors.
Let’s devote one last section to the subject of inversions, to complete our chordal arsenal. Firstly, we’ll address the inversions of min7(5). As a means of finding these inversions for the first time, you may wish to think of the inversions of minor 7 and make the necessary alteration.
There’s a special relationship between 6th chords and minor 7 chords. Inversions of minor 6 contain the same notes as the inversions of min7(5) and inversions of major 6 chords contain the same notes as minor 7, as demonstrated here:
Harmonization of a Melody
Now that we have a certain level of experience with inversions, we can put them to work—harmonizing melodies and mixing chords and melody. A good lead sheet provides the melody and chord changes. Any melodic note can be classified as one of the following:
- Chord tone (Root, 3rd, 5th, or 7th)
- Diatonic passing tone / chord tension (9th, 11th, or 13th)
- Altered chord tension (9th or 9th, 11th, or 13th)
Note: The term diatonic passing tone refers to a note that is found in the chord scale of the moment, but cannot be classified as a chord tone.
Once again, using the basic rules of substitutions for chord tones:
This chord tone may be replaced by ...
|
... this tension
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Root
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9th (or 2nd)
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3
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11th / 11th (or 4th / 4th)
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5
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13th (or 6th)
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Harmonization of a Melody (Page 2)
Using drop-2 voicings on , here are examples of melodic harmonization with diatonic passing tones (on the various chord qualities):
Harmonizing Melodies Workshop: Two Versions of "Billy Boy"
Let’s do some practical applications, using the by-now-familiar traditional standard, “Billy Boy.”
Example 12.16
Here is Billy Boy #3, a basic harmonization, using the basic rules of substitution. Most of the voicings are familiar to you. Notice the use of the first two strings for melodic material and work to ensure that the transitions from chord to chord are as smooth as possible.
Harmonizing Melodies Workshop: Two Versions of "Billy Boy" (Page 2)
Here's Billy Boy #4, a version that uses a higher degree of harmonic tension, utilizing substitution principles that we’ve discussed.
Example 12.17
Again, work to maximize all of the musical values.
Great Performances Workshop: "Blues for Alice" and "Soul Power"
Here are two more songs to practice with. Please note that the interactive exercise only goes through part of the song excerpt, so make sure to play through the entire song excerpt by listening to the MP3 and viewing the score.
Song 1: "Blues for Alice" by Charlie Parker
Here is an example of “Bird Blues,” as performed by Charlie Parker in 1951, also featuring John Lewis on piano and Kenny Clarke on drums. For many, the recordings made by Parker epitomize the bebop jazz style of the 1940s and 1950s. Pay close attention to John Lewis’ interesting introduction (the first four bars).
I hope that you’ve learned a lot in Guitar Chords 101 and that it will help you to realize your musical goals. I wish you all the best in your musical endeavors. I’d like to suggest some things to keep in mind.
- While practicing, stay vigilant, playing in time, with the use of a metronome or drum machine. Stay with a musical task until you can make it groove, with a strong time feel.
- While practicing chordal material, make sure that all of the notes that you're fingering with your fretting hand are heard clearly.
- Play with other musicians whenever possible, as often as you can. Practicing by yourself is only part of the overall plan.
- Make sure that the chords that you play fit well into your playing situation. Should your voicings contain a lot of notes or a few? Listen to the overall texture, and make a musical decision.
- Listen to the originators of the styles that you love. It's one of the best ways to keep yourself inspired.
- Listen to great guitarists, but don't stop there. Focus on performers of other instruments as well, and bring it all together to help you to develop your own unique voice.
