substitute dominant chords

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Substitute Dominant Chords http://www.thejazzresource.com/substitute_dominant_chords.html

1 de 4 01/07/2014 08:38 p.m.

http://www.thejazzresource.com/substitute_dominant_chords.html

Substitute Dominant ChordsSubstitute Dominant chords, sometimes referred to as tritone substitutes,are some of my favorite chords in jazz. Some songs have them already inthe chord progression, other times the player will actually play thesubstitute dominant instead of the regular or secondary dominantAdditionally, players will precede chords with substitute dominant chords toadd more chords to a progression (this one of the easiest and one of myfavorite ways to sound more "sophisticated").

So what is a substitute dominant chord?

Well, it's a dominant chord an augmented fourth, aka tritone, away fromthe dominant chord it's substituting for.

Now the term "substitute dominant chords" is a real mouthful, so they areoften called subV's ("sub five's").

So in the key of C, the primary dominant is the V7 chord, G7, and the subVfor G7 is Db7. The subV for the V7ofII, A7, is an Eb7. So a I VI7 II-7 V7progression with substitute dominants would be C Eb7 D-7 Db7.

Notice that the SubV for G is Db and likewise the subV for Db would be G.

Dominant V chords can have a variety of chord tensions, but subV's alwayshave the same: 9, #11, 13.

A common trick to make this easier is to play a major triad a whole stepabove the dominant chord. So on the subV of F#7, which is C7, you canplay a D major triad on top of the regular C, E, G, and Bb. Note also thatthese tensions of 9, #11, and 13 all sound great and very jazzy.

How do you reharmonize chord progressions with subV's?

As I said above, sometimes they are part of a chord progression naturally,but if you want to change a chord progression, here is how:

1)Replacing dominants with their substitutes. It's pretty self explanatory,here is a jazz blues chord progression with substitutes:

C7 / F7 / C7/ G-7 Gb7F7 / F#dim7 / C7 / E-7 Eb7D-7 / Db7 / C7 Eb7 / D-7 Db7

Notice that I only substituted the dominants that were a V7 of something(including the primary dominant, G7).

2)Preceeding chords with subV's. Just add a dominant chord with 9, #11,and 13 a half step above the chord it's proceeding. This creates a lot ofchords and can be sometimes done to excess. Here's the same bluesprogression with subV's added but not replacing the existing dominants:

C7 Gb7 / F7 Db7 / C7 Ab7 / G-7 C7F7 / F#dim7 Db7 / C7 F7 / E-7 A7D-7 Ab7 / G7 Db7 / C7 Bb7 A7 Eb7 / D-7 Ab7 G7 Db7

Note the last two bars have a chord on every beat with every possiblesubV. Usually this can be a little crazy but I like it at the end of the


2 de 4 01/07/2014 08:38 p.m.


SubV's sounds great and I love playing just an occasional subV every nowand then, or playing a ton of them, both while comping and soloing.

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substitute dominant chords

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