This is a follow-up post inspired by this post
Knowing that the chord G in the key of C major is the dominant is all very well- but what use is that?
The secret lies in cadences- once you identify where the cadences are in your chord progressions you can use chord extensions to make them more exciting.
In jazz, there are many, many substitutions for a dominant (V) chord in a perfect cadence. Here's a short list of examples- instead of G -> C you could try:
G7 (G B D F) -> C
Gsus4 (G C D) -> C
G13 (G D F B E) -> C
As well as this, you could substitute the C: G -> C maj7 (C E G B)
G -> C maj9 (C E G B D)
G -> C maj 13 (C E G B A)
G -> C6 (C E G A)
Key Point: Notice that the typical extensions of the tonic chord are different to the typical extensions of the dominant chord
dude this is so boring and I know this already- you can add pretty much any note from the key of C major to any chord in C major and it'll sound ok
Ok, so here's something new- there are extensions you can add to the dominant chord that don't belong to the key of C, but they work because they enhance the 'dominant-ness' of the V chord: like this:
Gaug (G B D#) -> C
G7 b9 (G B D F Ab) -> C
G7 #9 (G B D F A#) -> C
For tonic (I) chords, I don't know as many out-of-key extensions but you could try:
G -> C maj7 #11 (C E G B F#)
G -> C maj9 #11 (C E G B D F#)
G -> Bm/C (C E G B D F#)
G -> C7 (C E G Bb)
I'm going to say again something I said earlier- the extensions of the tonic chords are almost all different to those of the dominant chord. Dominant (V) chords with dominant extensions will always want to resolve to tonic (I) chords. You can use this to change keys.
Say we're in C major with a normal boring chord progression like
C -> F -> G -> C (I -> IV -> V -> I)
and we decide we want to add a key change into the same progression in F major.
F -> Bb -> C -> F
Traditionally you would say well C major is a chord in both C major and F major so we can just play C and then start the progression in F and it'll sound fine
C -> F -> G -> C -> F -> Bb -> C -> F
This is perfectly fine BUT
the change into F major will be much more obvious and much more exciting if we change the extensions on the C chord like this:
C maj7 -> F -> G -> C7 -> F maj7 -> Bb -> G -> F
Can you see what's happening here? Initially the progression is in C major so the tonic is C and we can extend it to C maj 7. The second C major chord is in the key of F so this time around C is the dominant chord and we extend it to C7.
I have been working on for a long time the common extensions of all the chords in a given key, if I get around to it I will maybe post it in the future.
I hope this all makes sense- I'm sure there are more questions you can ask and please do...
Submitted September 26, 2017 at 07:57AM by Scrapheaper https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/72jkn2/some_jazzy_tricks_you_can_do_once_you_know_the/?utm_source=ifttt