We're going to start today with a few bars of the Christmas song [Music]
so this is a simple melody in the key of C major. Using
the techniques I'll show you today, will make it sound like this...
or this [Music]
or maybe this...
as you can probably imagine, this could be endless. And although they all fit the melody,
the chord progressions are all quite different. The basic principles, we'll focus on today though, are:
looking at Harmony functionally; building voicings and; bass movement. S,o what do I mean by looking at
Harmony functionally? We need to look at the chords in a chord progression as a part of a landscape.
Something that provides context. You always have to ask yourself: how did I get to this chord? and,
where am I going after? A C major Triad and the key of C is not the same as a C major Triad in the key
of G. And it's not only the key that you're in that matters. And Am7 in the key is C could be a
iv minor, or a ii/V. So, if we use an Am to follow a G chord in the key of C, we can see it
as a V to vi, a deceptive Cadence. And that's a great reharmonization of a C chord [Music]
We can also expand our view of the landscape to include secondary functions. These Are chords that
target diatonic chords. So each diatonic chord has an accompanying set of secondary functions.
It looks complicated, but it's really just a list of chords. Just think of a sort of neighborhoods
for each diatonic chord. In our example, we replace the C -- our 1 chord -- with the VI
chord (Am.) So now, we can target the Am with the V of Am (E7) and we get this...
And all these lines show us the expected paths for each chord. This E7 wants to go
to the Am (here) and you don't have to learn all of these chords. Knowing just a few of them
will completely change the way you sound. So, let's look at the four reharmonizations and
I'll show you the chords that we used, and why we use them. So here's our first re-harm...
So the first thing we can do, is change this chord here for a Cadd9/E
These voicings in first inversion with an add9 sound really cool.
Now I'm going to look at my target (here, this C/E) This is where we look at the chord
functionally. So this is a 1 chord. This means we can replace it with a vi, right? So instead
of C/E I'm going to play Am7. The melody is E, so I can build any voicing, like this...
m7 chords sound really cool with an add9. Ninths are great for any chord: major,
minor, dominant, whatever! So now that we have this Am7 we can target it with an E7,
the V/vi -- a secondary dominant -- and guys, when you have a G in the melody, you can still
use an E7 to harmonize it. People see this note and they think this is gonna sound terrible on
top of an E7. But that's not the case. Instead of seeing the G as a minor third, look at it as the
#9. See? Now you have an E7#9b13, and it targets the Am chord beautifully.
We're also in luck, because the next note in the melody is an F natural -- which is the b9.
And as we've said before, the b9 and the #9 pair really well together on dominant
chords [Music] Now, for these two notes we can use many diatonic chords: G7, or Dm7... but let
me show you how the Fmaj7 is also great. Remember, the IV chord pairs really well with
the lydian scale, and F is the IV in C. The lydian scale is the major scale but with a #11. Sure,
it creates some tension in the chord, but it's the right tension, and it wants to move to the third
of the chord, which is exactly what the melody is doing. And let's put it in first inversion
with A on the bass, and build the voicing like this... First inversion voicings are great in this style
So far, this is what we have: C then Cadd9 with E on the bass, Fmaj7#11/A (our
lydian IV chord), and then E7#9b13, and finally Am7add9
And for the last two notes, we can keep the Fmaj7, but let's voice it with an
add9. And on the previous note, we can reinterpret it as a secondary dominant,
the V/IV (C7) and we can also add the 9th. And let's play it in second version
to create a descending line on the bass. Make sure you always consider creating
nice bass lines -- which are descending or ascending step-wise, or by fifths...
Let's just play the first chord in first inversion, and on the next chord, it would be nice
to move closer to our final target: this Fmaj7 on the last measure. So yes, we can start
considering our target as early as we want to. If I look at these two chords here: Gm7 to
C7, this is just a secondary 2-5 of the F chord. So we're targeting the IV chord with a
secondary 2-5. This is a great opportunity to move closer to the IV chord a bit earlier. So I can
use an Em7b5 -- which is a lot like a C7 -- and it would help us tonicize the Fmaj7 even
more. The Fmaj7 could also be an add9. And I'm also going to add the ninth on the Bb7 (here)
Another great technique, is to use subV chords. These chords can replace any dominant chord. For this reharm, I'm going to
start from the end, and build my re-harm backwards. Remember, we're always thinking towards our target
chords. So the last chord in measure two is Fmaj7 Let's go ahead and add the ninth again. Now,
can I target this F with an extended dominant sequence? and what would it look like if I did?
Well, it would look like this: a bunch of chords targeting each other. Now, every chord is the V
of the following chord. And it's this concept that we're going to use as a starting point for our new
reharm. Now let's figure out if, and where, our new chords fit in with our melody. So these chords fit
perfectly here. We could leave this as is, but let's see what we can do to take this a step further. To
start with, this C7 can be replaced by a Gb7, the subV. And as we've said before, the
subV of any dominant chord can be found a tritone away from that chord, and is a great substitution
for any V chord. Here's a useful shortcut also: the subV is always a half step above the target
chord. Notice how our new chord Gb7 is a half step above our target (F), and most importantly, it
fits with the melody. For the next chord --again, going backwards -- we have two choices: we can leave
the G7 alone; or change it to a Db7 (the tritone substitution of G7.) And that's exactly
what we're going to do here. We're going to use a Db7 in place of the G7. However, in order to make
this chord fit the melody, we'll have to make it an altered chord. This would make the melody the
#9 of our new chord. And that's one of the really cool things about dominant chords. They can
withstand a lot of tinkering and fussing about with. They love tension. Earlier, we lined up our
extended dominant sequence with the melody. You might have noticed that this created a sort of
harmonic void on the fourth beat of this measure. I want to show you a great technique, that you can
always rely on, to fill in such gaps: "interpolating a related ii". Our void precedes this G7. And what's
the related to of this G7? Dm7. ii's are an excellent way to approach any V chord.
But you know what else is a great way to anticipate a V chord? The V7sus4. You
can actually see this chord as a iim7 on top of the V chord's root. Creating a cool
sort of pedal point effect. So let's do that here: G7sus4. Void filled! Our next chord is D7. So, we'll
just swap it out with its tritone substitution again (Ab7#9.) Again, we're altering
the 9th to fit our melody. And the first two chords of the song could just be the original C
major (with an add9 of course) and then a tonic reharmonization with Am (the vi chord) which
is really cool, because it also acts as the related ii of our original D7 reharm.
And on the last two measures, I just want to show you another option that you have
regarding the subV chords. So here, we could replace the C7 with the tritone substitution
Gb7, but we can also use both! So, we can have a Gb7#11 to C7 to Fmaj7.
This technique will always create a double approach on the bass-line: the Gb7 targets
the F with the chromatic approach from above, and the C7 targets the F with a perfect fifth.
And these are both great bass movements that you always want to see in your bass lines.
And of course, we can add the 9th to the Fmaj7 voicing.
And let's also add the 9th and the 13th to the Bb7. These are the best tensions to add on
a dominant chord. Remember, 9ths and 13ths on dominant chords, are always a good bet
so that'll do it for our first two re-harms. If you're a member, go ahead and
keep watching re-harm three and four, along with all the PDFs of these arrangements. If you'd like
to become a member go ahead and click on the join button (or the link down below) for access
to this and all sorts of other cool stuff. Thanks for watching, we'll see you in the next video