Chord substitution in general is a fascinating topic. Change one chord in a tiny way, & it can be a substitution for another chord. Check out this chord substitution trick, and how these two chords are related!

➡ Get my FREE, amazing chord options chart called ‘Chords with Color’

Weekly Lesson #97

Chord Substitution Trick Lesson Content Outline With Timestamp Links:

0:00 - Guitar Playing Intro
0:11 - About the lesson
1:27 - About the channel
2:03 - Screen view showing the chord substitution trick
19:25 - Guitar view showing the chord substitution trick
22:06 - Free PDF & Outro

Links & Lessons Mentioned in This Video:

• Get my FREE, amazing chord options chart called ‘Chords with Color’
• Jazz Guitar Walking Bass with Chords Playlist

Chord Substitution Trick Lesson Description:

This week's lesson is on a seriously cool, chord substitution music theory concept.

Mark, one of your fellow Sound Guitar Lesson followers, recently posted this comment on one of my lessons:

“The only thing I’m still kinda in the dark about is the diminished and dominant flat nine . . . Diminished chords are shady characters, if they were people I wouldn’t trust them. It’s just a matter of time before I grasp and understand their relationship with dominant.”

Haha! Yeah, diminished 7 chords are shady characters—they can pretend to be so many things at once.

But when using them as chord substitutions, that’s what makes them powerful!

Here is one sentence from the lengthy reply that I sent him explaining the relationship between dominant 7 and diminished 7:

If you take any diminished 7 chord and lower ANY of the four notes in it by a half step then it becomes a different dominant 7th chord each time. That means that the diminished 7 shape can be a chord substitution for any of those dominant 7 chords! 

Sound confusing? It is at first, and it deserves more than one sentence to explain it.

That's why I made this week's lesson video.

This is a great example of how all sound structures in music are so interconnected and related.

Changing something by one half-step can make a huge difference.

Definitely check out this lesson if you're interested in the theory of chord substitutions—and stick around for the end because in the last segment I play examples of how the sound can finally resolve to a minor triad and it sounds amazing :)

I hope you find it helpful, interesting, and inspiring :)

➡ Get my FREE, amazing chord options chart called ‘Chords with Color’

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I hope you enjoyed this lesson about using diminished 7 as a chord substitution and found it beneficial. Let me know what you thought in the comments. Thanks! :) 

- Jared