I’ve talked a lot about substitutions in the past. We’ve studied tritones substitutions, diminished seventh chord substitutions, ditone substitutions, and more.

Today, I want to go even further and talk about another popular type of substitution… the “tonic substitution.”

As you may know from past lessons, the first degree of the scale is called the “tonic.” In fact, every degree of the scale has a name.

It’s just a fancy way to say “home.” The first degree of the scale is basically the key you’re song is in. It’s the first and last tone of the scale. When you’re playing a chord off the first tone of the scale, it has a feeling of “home” and “rest.” It’s at peace. That’s why most songs end on the “1″ (or the “tonic”).

In songs, often times you can substitute other chords for the normal “1-chords.” Composers do this to make the song more interesting. Rather than always going back to the same type of “1-chord,” they put in other stuff to spice things up… to make things less predictable. And if you have any of my GospelKeys courses, you know that unpredictability is key in differentiating yourself from other musicians.

So when it comes to tonic substitutions, there are two other degrees of the scale that are great candidates to replace the “1.”

But before I tell you them, let’s consider each degree of the scale:

C major

1st degree = C major 7 (C + E + G + B)
2nd degree = D minor 7 (D + F + A + C)
3rd degree = E minor 7 (E + G + B + D)
4th degree = F major 7 (F + A + C + E)
5th degree = G dominant 7 (G + B + D + F)
6th degree = A minor 7 (A + C + E + G)
7th degree = B half-diminished 7 (B + D + F + A)

In this example, the tonic chord would usually be something based on C major 7. Of course, you can drop the “7″ and only play C major triad if you want (C+E+G) or you can expand the 7 and play a major 9th chord (C + E + G + B + D) or even an 11th or 13th chord. But the idea is… usually it’s something “major sounding” and its usually based on the first tone of your scale.

But when you’re substituting other chords for the tonic, you’re pretty much going to an entirely different tone of the scale instead. We’re not talking about simply changing notes in your chord. I’m talking about playing a totally different chord in its place.

There are tons of candidates but I’m going to talk about the most popular 2.

The “6th” degree and the “3rd” degree!

6th degree

In other lessons, you’ve learned that the 6th degree is the relative minor of the major key you’re in so there’s no surprise that it can act as a substitute.

Now that’s another lesson in and of itself and I encourage you to use my search box in the upper right hand corner to search for “relative minor.” But for now, just know that the 6th tone and has very special bond with the 1st tone. They are close relatives! In fact, their scales share the same notes. In this case, “A” is the relative minor of “C major.” If you played the notes of the “A minor” scale, they would be identical to the notes of the “C major scale.” This rule goes for the 6th tone of ANY major scale.

So basically, whenever a song is supposed to come back “home” to the tonic, many will divert to the 6th degree. In this case, an “A minor 7″ chord or some derivative of it.

And if you really think about it, the notes of the “A minor 7″ chord are not that far off from the notes of the “C major 7″ chord.

Let’s compare:

C major 7

A minor 7

They pretty much share all but one note. In fact, the “C major” triad is a part of the “A minor 7″ chord.

In “Amazing Grace,” you can see this tonic substitution at work:

“A-ma-zing grace* how”
C major (1st inversion) ~~~
(E + G + C)

“Sweet the”
F major (root inversion) ~~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major (root inversion) ~~~
(C + E + G)

“That”
E minor (2nd inversion)
(B + E + G)

“saved a”
A minor 7 ~~~
(E + A + C / A bass)

“wretch like”
D major (add 9) ~~~
(F# + A + E / D bass)

“Me”
G major (first inversion) ~~~
(B + D + G)

Do you see the tonic substitution at work in this song? The song could have easily gone back to the regular “1-chord” tonic on “saved” but it didn’t. Well, I take back… when people play the basic version of the song, they actually do go back to the regular 1-chord, which is major. But that’s only in very basic arrangements of “Amazing Grace.” 90% of arrangements go to a minor chord on “saved.” That is a tonic substitution! It’s when you don’t have to go there but you do… and when you do, it provides more interest and flavor.

3rd degree

Similar to the 6th degree, you can use the 3rd degree of the scale as a tonic substitution.

So in the key of C major, instead of going back to a C major 7 chord, you’d go to an E minor 7 chord.

Let’s compare the chords:

C major 7

E minor 7

Lo and behold, these chords share all but one note. It’s basically the OPPOSITE of the notes shared with the first tonic substitution above. Basically, the C major 7 chord has an “E minor” (E+G+B) triad inside it.

And just like the 6th degree above, this makes the 3rd degree an awesome candidate! Instead of going back to the 1-chord like you’d normally do, use the minor 7 chord on the 3rd degree and it will provide the spice you’re looking for!

So what’s the moral of the story?

Looks for chords that are strikingly similar and experiment with substituting one for the other. A lot of it can be systematized like the two I’ve shown you here but many will come about by “trial and error.”

I’ve interviewed tons of musicians and all of them say the same thing — that their nicest chords came unexpectedly by trial and error. So start paying close attention to chords you already play. Notice which ones share common tones and then start replacing one for the other. Remember other components like the melody and you’ll really be on the right track (that is, if you can find a chord that shares most of the notes WHILE keeping the melody on top, then you’re golden!)

I hope you enjoyed this lesson!

Until next time —

Popularity: 31% [?]

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed for regular updates. If you'd rather subscribe by e-mail, click here. Thanks for visiting.

I’m back!

Things have been so hectic. From the launch of GMTC to server problems and Thanksgiving, I’ve had enough to keep me busy indeed.

But now, my head is clear and I’m ready to go full force!

Recall, the other day, I taught you the altered scale (a.k.a. - the ‘super locrian‘ mode)

You’ll really want to check out this past post if you haven’t already. You’ll be lost if you don’t.

You learned, step-by-step, how to play the altered scale.

It’s basically any melodic minor scale played from the 7th tone to the 7th tone (… in other words, instead of starting and ending on the first tone of the scale like you’d normally do, you start and end on the 7th tone of the SAME scale. It gives it a totally different feel). So in essence, we’re mixing together two past ideas you’ve already learned: 1) the melodic minor scale and, 2) modes.

So here’s the “B Super Locrian” scale you learned from my previous post:

Now, let’s take it a step further and show you how to multiply your usage of scales, modes, and “runs.”

In my last lesson, I explained that you can play this scale pretty much over any of these types of chords:

B7 #9#5
B7 b9 #5
B7 b9
B7 #9
B7 #5

…Basically, any chord with a sharp or flat 9 or a sharp or flat 5… essentially, some of the most commonly used “altered” chords (thus the name, “altered scale”).

Why? Because those are the tones represented in the scale (if you write the scale degree numbers out)…

Altered / Super Locrian scale = 1, b9, #9, 3, b5, #5, b7

But these aren’t the only chords you can use this scale with…

Remember the concept of “tritones?” I taught this a few months back.

Every note has another note that’s a “tritone” away in distance. I told you to memorize these “pairs” as if your music career depended on it — because they’re used EVERYWHERE!

I don’t have enough space to talk about tritones in depth but check out this past lesson and similar ones in my archives.

So in order to find out where else you can use this “B super locrian” (a.k.a - “B altered scale”), among many places, ask yourself this question…

“What is a tritone away from B?”

Hint: A tritone is either 3 whole steps up or 3 whole steps down… you’ll arrive at the same place!

The answer is: F

F is a tritone away from B and they collectively create a tritone if you play them together (”B + F”).

So that means you can play the same scale over an F dominant chord (or even altered chord but you may have to omit some “avoid notes.”). I personally prefer a dominant 13 chord or some type of extended dominant chord (9th, 11th, 13th, etc).

Example:

F9 (add 13)
(F not shown but play it on your bass)

And you can use the same “B altered / super locrian” scale from above to solo over it:

Why does this work so well?

Because if you simply keep the chord the same and only change your bass from “F” to “B,” you’ll be back to a “B7 #9#5″ altered chord and as you know from the list of chords above, it’s one of the ones the work really well with the altered scale.

B7 (#9#5)
(B not shown but play it on your bass)

Note: This is actually how all dominant chords work. If you just keep your right-hand chord the same and switch your bass to a "tritone" away, you'll have two chords that can be substituted for each other! Works most of the time... like a charm! We call this idea... "tritone substitutions.”

See… I told you this post would be detailed! Just making up for a few MIA days!

Take it slowly. Repeat it if you have to.

Until next time —

Popularity: 26% [?]

Lately, we’ve been talking about power chords, tritones, and substitutions.

Today, I want to show you how to use tritones and minor chords to form crazy-sounding dominant ninth chords.

Yes, that means if you know all your tritones (…there’s only really 6 to learn) and all your basic minor triads, then you can play dominant ninth chords — instantly!

But not just any kind of dominant ninth chord. This voicing sounds really good!

As you know, two musicians can play the same dominant chord and make their versions sound totally different. I’m going to give you a “behind-the-scenes” look at how that’s possible.

Here’s the regular C dominant 9 chord:

C E G Bb D

It’s basically a C dominant 7 chord with an added “9″ tone. If you don’t understand where the 9 comes from, read yesterday’s lesson.

There are only two steps to transforming this boring, “standard” ninth chord into a snazzy one!

Step 1: Play the tritone replacement for the dominant chord on your left hand. Remember, you can always substitute the appropriate tritone for a full dominant chord since a tritone utilizes the key tones of the dominant chord. Basically, take the 3rd and 7th tones out of the dominant chord and play them on your left hand. That is a tritone.

Example:

C dominant 9
C + E + G + Bb + D

You’d take out E and Bb and play them together.

* As you probably know, “E” is the third tone of the scale and “Bb” is the flat seventh tone.

So far, my left hand has “E + Bb” in it.

Step 2: After you have determined what tritone to play on your left hand, you’ll want to identify the 5th tone of the chord. You’ll want to play a minor chord off this tone on your right hand. If I’m playing a C9 chord, the 5th tone of C is basically G (which is in the chord). I’m simply going to play a G minor chord on my right hand.

It’s that simple! Find 5th tone of chord (or scale) and play its minor triad. Point blank!

Example:

C dominant 9
C + E + G + Bb + D

*The fifth tone in C major is G. Therefore, I’m going to play a G minor on my right hand: (G + Bb + D)

You can try different inversions of this G minor triad but I prefer first inversion, which means the keynote will always be on top: (Bb + D + G)

Same for the tritone, you can try the alternate inversion but I like my flat seventh on the bottom (Bb + E) but feel free to try the other way around too (”E + Bb”). They both work.

So my full chord looks like this:

C dominant 9
Bb + E on left hand /// Bb + D + G on right hand

If you do use the opposite tritone “E + Bb,” you may find that the “Bb” from your tritone meets the “Bb” from your G minor chord if you’re playing both hands close to each other. This is fine. It actually results in a nice little effect with simply “E” on the left hand and “G minor” on the right hand.

Now here’s the best part.

In gospel music, you can really work this! Try going down a half step and doing the same thing. Then quickly move that chord back up to your original chord.

So basically, take this same exact voicing of C9 and move it down to B9.

If you understand “big picture thinking” (yesterday’s post), this shouldn’t be hard.

What is the tritone that goes with “B?” Bam! That’s your left hand!

What’s the 5th tone of B? Play it’s minor chord in first inversion! Bam!

B dominant 9
A + D# on left hand /// A + C# + F# on right hand

*I’m using informal naming to make it easier to follow

And this B dominant 9 (a.k.a “B9″), which is the same exact chord as C9 (but moved down a half step), leads perfectly to the C9:

B dominant 9
A + D# on left hand /// A + C# + F# on right hand

C dominant 9
Bb + E on left hand /// Bb + D + G on right hand

In fact, if you play gospel music and know the classic “shouting” bass run:

C - E - F - Gb - G - A - Bb - B - C

*It’s a bass line so play each of these notes separately.

…Imagine playing this same dominant 9 voicing over each of these bass notes.

But here’s the thing — with this voicing, you don’t really play the bass. Either you rely on someone else playing the bass or you just play the chords rootless.

Imagine replacing each of those “shouting” bass notes with this dominant 9 voicing?

Try it! You already know the notes for C9 and B9.

Just take the same formula and match up the chords for each of these bass notes. Then practice playing them because it won’t be easy at first. You’ll love what you come up with! Sounds a little crazy at first but this is how top gospel musicians like Jason White and Michael Bereal think.

I hope you enjoyed!

Until next time —

Popularity: 17% [?]

On Friday, I introduced “tritone substitutions.”

And by now, you should be a pro at substituting one dominant chord for another.

What’s the trick?

It’s simple. Just figure out what’s a tritone up or down (you’ll land on the same note) from where you’re currently at — then just play that dominant chord instead of your original one.

For example, if you’re playing a G7, the rule simply states to find out what’s a tritone up or down from “G.” The answer is “Db.” Play Db7 and in its place and you’ve got yourself a new sound! It’s that easy!

Oh yeah… just in case you don’t know how to play a G7 or Db7 chord (pronounced “G seventh” or “D flat seventh” — or also known as a “dominant seventh” chord), here are the spellings:

G dominant 7: G + B + D + F
Db dominant 7: Db + F + Ab + B (using “B” informally but it would really be C flat (Cb) if this were a music theory exam or something)

So far, we’ve only covered tritone substitutions in “2-5-1″ progressions. In other words, you’ve only seen it in action in this setting:

Dminor7 >>> G7 (substitute D7 here) >>> Cmajor7

Let’s see how tritone substitutions can work in a 1-6-2-5-1 progression:

1-major7 >>> 6-minor7 >>> 2-minor7 >>> 5-dominant 7 >>> 1-major7

In this lesson, we talked about using secondary dominant chords on the “2″ and “6″ chords. Since tritone substitutions work best for dominant chords, let’s change our 2 and 6 chords…

1-major7 >>> 6-dominant7 >>> 2-dominant7 >>> 5-dominant7 >>> 1-major7

In C major, that’s:

C major7 >>> A dominant7 >>> D dominant7 >>> G dominant7 >>> C major7

Now that your minor chords have been changed to dominants, you can pretty much pick your choice! Any of these dominant chords can be candidates for tritone substitutions. (Other types of chords work as well but it’s particularly the way the dominant chord is structured that makes it perfect in these situations.

Notice the tritone in the G7 chord: G + B + D + F. And because there’s really only 6 UNIQUE tritones as we learned in Friday’s lesson, the chord that shares the “other side” of this tritone (F + B) is Db7. That’s why G7 and Db7 can be substituted for each other because they pretty much share two of the same notes — that’s half of their notes!)

So here’s the progression again:

C major7 >>> A dominant7 >>> D dominant7 >>> G dominant7 >>> C major7

And your options…

Option #1: You can choose to play Eb dominant 7 instead of A dominant 7 (Eb is a tritone away from A).

C major7 >>> Eb7 >>> D7 >>> G7>>> C major7

*I tend to like tritone substitutions much better as “tritone follow-ups” (made that up). Instead of replacing “Eb dominant 7″ for “A dominant 7,” I’d rather keep the “A dominant 7″ and just follow-up quickly with the “Eb dominant 7″ to take me to my next chord in the progression. Let’s try that…

C major7 >>> (A7 >>> Eb7) >>> D7 >>> G7 >>> C major7

(So always remember that trick. You don’t have to always substitute. You can use the tritone substitution chord as a follow-up and still add flavor.)

Option #2: You can choose to play Ab dominant 7 instead of D dominant 7 (Ab is a tritone away from D).

Option #3: You can choose to play Db dominant 7 instead of G dominant 7 (Db is a tritone away from G).

Option #4: You can choose to mix and match, substituting two of the three chords (but this gets risky). I wouldn’t go too far or else the real underlying chord progression will be threatened.

So really — for each of these options, you have two choices. You can either do a full substitution (one for the other) or you can do what I call a “follow-up,” keeping both of the chords. But that’s the idea.

So learn your tritones! Learn their relationships! And learn where you can substitute them and you’ll be a forced to be reckoned with!

Until next time —

GospelKeys Tritone Xtravaganza

I've teamed up with my good friend Jamal Hartwell to bring you GospelKeys Tritone Xtravaganza, the course that's finally going to reveal the ins and outs of tritones, how to use them properly, where to place them, and how to take full advantage of their power! Never before has a course focused just on tritones for a whopping 2 hours straight!

GospelKeys Tritone Xtravaganza truly takes you step-by-step and shows you everything you need to know to spice up your contemporary playing with tritones and accompanying chords! Click here to learn more | Buy now

Popularity: 15% [?]

Wait!

I know you’re thinking… “whoa, big words.”

But let me assure you that this concept is very easy to understand.

Maybe you’ve heard of it. Perhaps you’ve seen these words thrown around forums. Well, I’m finally going to demystify tritone substitutions for you…

Yesterday, we talked about the tritone. I called it the little cousin of the power chord.

As you know, a tritone is made up of the 1 and b5 interval.

C major:

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

In C major, that’s C + Gb (G is the fifth… simply lower it to Gb).

It’s also known as a diminished fifth interval. (Diminish literally means to “make smaller”).

But here’s the thing with tritones. Unlike other chords, you really only have to learn 6 of them.

Yes! 12 is THE magic number in music. There are 12 major chords, 12 minor chords, 12 diminished chords… 12 of everything!

But with tritones, they are symmetric. In other words, they are the same if you take the bottom note and move it to the top. It doesn’t matter.

Take that “C + Gb,” flip it, and you’ll get “Gb + C” (it’s still a tritone).

On the other hand, if you take a perfect fifth like “C + G” and flip it, you won’t get the same fifth — instead, you’ll get a fourth (”G + C”). That’s because they aren’t symmetric.

Tritones are basically equal when you transpose them.

And get this…

They cut the octave perfectly in half.

Yes, believe it or not, the “b5″ (flatted fifth) marks the MIDDLE POINT of the octave.

So if you go from C to Gb and then from Gb to C, you would have encompassed an octave.

Octave = 12 half steps
Tritone = 6 half steps (or 3 whole steps, thus the name “tri”)

Because of all this, there are really only 6 of them. Gb + C is basically the same as C + Gb (at least for the purposes in which we’ll use them).

That means, all you have to do is learn these (and I’m going to use informal spellings just to keep thing simple):

C + Gb
Db + G
D + Ab
Eb + A
E + Bb
F + B

…And you’ll automatically know these, the “flipped” versions:

Gb + C
G + Db
Ab + D
A + Eb
Bb + E
B + F

So the key is to master not only these tritones played as chords (or dyads) but to master, for example, what a tritone up from C is. In other words, you should be able to know that the other “tritone” side of D is Ab. Or the other side of G is Db. Or the other side of E is Bb, and vise versa.

Because once you understand this, tritone substitution is easy.

It basically says that you can substitute the chord a tritone away for the chord you’re currently on. It works best with dominant chords but you can mess around with it on major and minor seventh chords as well.

But basically, let’s see how this works in a 2-5-1 chord progression…

Normally, in a 2-5-1, the “5″ tone is a dominant chord.

2-minor7 >>> 5-dominant7 >>> 1-major7

In C major, this plays out as:

D minor7 >>> G dominant7 >>> C major7

D minor7 = D + F + A + C
G dominant7 = G + B + D + F
C major7 = C + E + G + B

See the “G dominant 7?” The rules behind “tritone substitution” say that you can replace this G dominant7 with the dominant chord that is 3 whole steps away (or a “tritone” away).

That is the golden rule!

I said “follow” because, in my experience, you can usually play your original chord and then follow-up with the dominant chord a tritone away. And other times, you can substitute the original chord altogether.

And like I said, if you know your tritone relationships very well, it won’t take long to know that you can use Db dominant 7 in the place of G dominant 7 (”G7″ for short).

D minor 7 >>> Db dominant 7 >>> C major 7

D minor7 = D + F + A + C
Db dominant7 = Db + F + Ab + Cb
C major7 = C + E + G + B

*Cb is basically the same as playing “B” — just spelled differently.

Why does the Db7 work so well as a substitute for the G7 chord?

Well, let’s look at their notes:

G7:
G + B + D + F

Db7:
Db + F + Ab + B

(Yes, I know that “B” should say “Cb” but I’m trying to make a point here).

Regardless of what you call them, do you see the two common notes that these two chords share? In fact the notes they share (”B + F”) form a tritone, themselves! There are just tritones everywhere!

Next week, I’m going to show you how to use tritone substitutions in 1-6-2-5-1 chord progressions. I’ll even show you how to simply move JUST the bass note of most of your chords up a tritone, and how it can totally change the feel of your chords! You’ll love it!

GospelKeys Tritone Xtravaganza

I've teamed up with my good friend Jamal Hartwell to bring you GospelKeys Tritone Xtravaganza, the course that's finally going to reveal the ins and outs of tritones, how to use them properly, where to place them, and how to take full advantage of their power! Never before has a course focused just on tritones for a whopping 2 hours straight!

GospelKeys Tritone Xtravaganza truly takes you step-by-step and shows you everything you need to know to spice up your contemporary playing with tritones and accompanying chords! Click here to learn more | Buy now

All the best —

Popularity: 19% [?]

Now that you’re familiar with power chords (from yesterday’s post), I want to introduce you to the power chord’s cousin.

(If power chords are your batteries, per yesterday’s photo, then his cousin is your fuel… just a little play on words).

Let’s review the power chord really quickly.

A power chord is basically made up of a fifth interval. In any given key, just play the 1 and the 5 together and you’ve got yourself a power chord.

C major scale
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

But most people don’t stop at playing just “C + G.” They double up on the C, playing it on top as well:

“C + G + C.”

So there’s a crash course on power chords.

Now, at the end of yesterday’s lesson, I gave you some more variations of this “1+5+1″ power chord.

Here they are:

• If playing a major seventh, ninth, eleventh, or thirteenth chord, you can actually play “1 + 5 + 7″ as a power chord on your left hand. Since the major 7 degree is found in these chords, it makes sense and sounds awesome!
• In C major, that’s “C + G + B”
• If playing a minor or dominant seventh, ninth, eleventh, or thirteenth chord, you can play “1 + 5 + b7″ as a power chord on your left hand. Unlike the first variation, the seventh is lowered a half step to be more conducive to dominant and minor seventh chords, which both have lowered seventh notes in them.
• In C major, that’s “C + G + Bb.”

So here’s where I want to introduce you to the power chord’s cousin…

Her name is “tritone.”

She’ll help you to play this “1 + 5 + b7″ chord a lot more flavorful!

Unlike the power chord which uses the 1 and the 5 to form a chord (some call it a “dyad” because it’s only 2 notes as opposed to 3), the tritone uses the 1 and b5. So it’s like a power chord with the fifth lowered.

Power chord (example):
C + G

Tritone (example):
C + Gb

This is also called a diminished fifth interval.

There’s another way to look at tritones. You can also look at them as the 3rd and b7 of any key.

(I can just imagine you connecting the dots now… hmmm, the “b7″)

In C major:
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 G 6 7

Turn the 7 into a b7 (that’s B into Bb) and there’s your tritone:

E + Bb

So where do you use it?

Anytime you’re playing a dominant chord or some kind of altered chord that is based on the dominant chord.

Here’s why…

Check out the C dominant 7 chord:

C + E + G + Bb

Do you see what I see?

It has a tritone inside of it! The distance from “E” to “Bb” in the chord is the “3 + b7″ interval we’ve been talking about.

Therefore, instead of playing the power chord alteration from yesterday (1 + 5 + b7), you can play the “3 + b7″ instead.

Actually, you can switch off. Playing by ear is all about having OPTIONS. You can play the power chord first… then when the chord comes back around, you can play the tritone on your left hand the next time.

Here’s some other things you can do:

• 3 + b7
• 1 + 3 + b7 (the only difference in this one is that you’re playing the “3″ and not the “5″ like you did in the power chord variation).
• 3 + b7 + 3 (double up on the “3,” similar to the voicings taught in this lesson).

So now you’ve got the power chord, some power chord variations, and the tritone under your finger tips!

GospelKeys Tritone Xtravaganza

I've teamed up with my good friend Jamal Hartwell to bring you GospelKeys Tritone Xtravaganza, the course that's finally going to reveal the ins and outs of tritones, how to use them properly, where to place them, and how to take full advantage of their power! Never before has a course focused just on tritones for a whopping 2 hours straight!

GospelKeys Tritone Xtravaganza truly takes you step-by-step and shows you everything you need to know to spice up your contemporary playing with tritones and accompanying chords! Click here to learn more | Buy now

Popularity: 17% [?]