Two important chord substitutions

Quick news before I do this post.  I am climbing out from under a mountain of things I am backed on since I had to start practicing 8 hours/day to get these recent projects done.  On this blog, I put two things on hold that I am going to return to over the next few weeks:  posting videos of reharmonization every week and posting contributions of readers for critiques.  I have plenty of contributions already sitting here, but if you have one you want to send, feel free. 

Today, I want to rehash a concept that I have talked about many times but I consider foundational.  I will follow this up with a video in a separate post.

There are two chord progressions that you simply need to start playing automatically.  They are not complicated but they make a huge difference in your sound.

Both progressions are really the same though they might not initially look that way. Let me give you the rules very quickly.

1) When you see a V – I progression, turn it into a ii – V7 – I progression.
2) When you see a IV chord, try inserting a Vmin7 – I7 in front of it.

Both of these rules highlight the power of the ii – V – I progression.  If you do not see how the second rule applies, look again while pretending that the IV chord is a I chord.   When you do, the Vmin7 becomes a ii chord (technically ii/IV).  The I7 becomes the V7 (technically the secondary dominant V/IV).  So the progression is really ii/IV – V/IV – I/IV.

Don’t worry if you can’t follow what I just said.  You don’t have to.  You just have to start inserting these extra chords into your music.

Let’s work through an example.  Let’s say you are in the key of C.  In the key of C, here are the chords we care about.

C – I chord
Dmin – ii chord
F – IV chord
G – V chord
Gmin – v chord

When you are playing a song in the key of C and have the music in front of you, go through the song and circle all the G – C (V – I) progressions.  Then circle all of the F (IV) chords).

Then work through the song slowly.  When you come to a G – C progression, try to insert Dmin in front of the G.  Most of the time, the easiest way to do this is by dividing up the beats that G is being played.  For example, if G is played for 4 beats, play Dmin for the first two beats and G for the last two beats.  Or, you can steal a beat or two from the chord in front of the G7 and play Dmin there.

Here is an example.  We are in 4/4 time and I am repeating the chord being played for each beat.

Original music:       F  F  F  F          G  G  G  G          C  C  C  C
Option 1:               F  F  F  F           Dmin  Dmin G7  G7          C  C  C  C
Option 2:               F  F  Dmin  Dmin          G7  G7  G7  G7          C  C  C  C

Which option should you use? Whatever sounds better to you.

If the G chord does not have the 7th (F) added to it, add it.  The Dmin will also sound better if you add the 7th (C).

When you work through the song and come to a F chord, try to insert Gmin – C7 in front of it in the same way.  This is a bit trickier and will not always sound right.  However, when it works, it sounds awesome.

Original music:       C  C  C  C           F  F  F  F
Option 1:                C  Gmin  C7  C7          F  F  F  F
Option 2:                C  C  Gmin  Gmin         C7  C7  F  F

Remember to add 7ths to both the Gmin and the C7 chord. 

This harmony needs to become as instinctive to you as anything else you do when you play.  The ii – V – I progression is the cornerstone of modern music.  Practice this by playing ii – V – I progressions in every key.

There is more to talk about regarding the ii – V – I progression, but I will save it for another time.