Jazz Piano Harmony: Chord Substitutions - A Tutorial

The Power of Chord Substitutions Chord Substitutions are one of the most powerful concepts in harmony, be it pop, jazz or any other. Substitutions can take a very ordinary sounding chord progression and really make it into something with interesting harmony. With this video you will learn how to use chord substitutions in your own playing, whether your instrument is piano, guitar or any other! What is a Chord Substitutions? As its name implies, whenever you&changing one chord for another chord or for another set of chords you&performing a substitutions. The trick is of course knowing which chords to change and when, which is what this video is about. An Example Let&look at the following simple chord progression: | C / / / | G / / / | (One chord per bar; the forward slash is used to indicate the preceding chord should be repeated on that beat.) One common substitution, known as the 2-5 substitution, says you can precede any chord with a chord a perfect fourth below it (be it minor or major). The chord Dm (D minor) is a perfect fourth below G major, so we can write: | C / / / | Dm / G / | We&just substituted | Dm / G / | instead of | G / / / |. Common Chord Substitutions The video covers several common chord substitutions, including: (1.) Chromatic substitution: any chord can be preceded by a chord one semitone above it (e.g., G can be substituted by Ab, G). (2.) Diminished substitution: any dominant 7 chord can be replaced by a diminished 7 chord 4 semitones above...