A Quick Follow-Up To “Approach Chords”

After writing about Approach Chords the other day, I received a request for more of these types of chords.

Recall the definition of approach chords – In music, an approach chord is a chord one half-step higher or lower than the goal (aka – place you’re going to), and especially helpful in turnarounds and chord progressions that move in fourths.

So here’s another idea for you…

On the tone a half step “LOWER” than the chord you want to go to (aka – “the target”), play a minor7 #5.

So if my target chord is Ebminor7, which is Eb on left /// Gb + Bb + Db on right, I could play D minor 7 #5 right before it: D on left /// C + F + A#

Dmin7 #5

Eb minor 7

Or you could invert the Dmin7 #5 to put F on top:

…which leads nicely to an Eb minor 9 (which allows you to keep the F from the previous chord on top):

And for more spice, you could turn the Dmin7 #5 into a D7 #9#5 with the addition of one note (F#) on the bottom:

So there you have it — a few more ideas to get your creativity juices flowing. What else can you come up with?

Related posts:

1. Using Approach Chords To Spice Up Your Sound!
2. Here’s a quick way to add even more spice to your songs
3. A Quick & Easy Way To Play Suspended Chords
4. A Quick and Easy Way to Spice Up Minor Chords
5. How to play smoothly using the power of inversions Part 2
6. Here’s A Quick Way To “Open” All Your Major Chords
7. Here’s a quick and easy refresher on tertian chords

Tagged as: approach chords, dominant 7 #9, min7 #5, passing chords