[ButchP]

Originally Posted by skiroy

So Im a newbie to music but Im getting alot better. I have gotten pretty decent at coming up with chord progressions and the circle of fiths has been a major eye opener. I have gotten alright at making my chords prgression move in a intented direction, but Im still having issues with the 5 chord to pull back home. I can build 7th,9ths, and some what 11ths and 13ths chords all though they tend to sound a little to complex for hip hop sometimes, but sometimes I just like to play em. But whenever I get to the part of a progression where I want to go back home I play the dominant and it always sounds generic and corny to me.

Can anyone give some tips on dominant chords or how yall end your progressions. I like to play minor alot and somthing I learned is instead of playing the dominant you can just play that chord in minor. But thats about it.

I have NO idea how this would sit in a hip hop tune but here's a few ideas

Any altered dominant chord can be substituted for the key dominant(V chord)

an Altered dominant has
#5,#9
b5,b9

or any combination.

That leads to a b5 substitute.A chord an interval b5th away from a chord can be subed

Ex
Bb=E sub

A-F#-B-E-

b5 sub for E
A-F#-B-Bb

b5 sub for B

A-F#-F-E

b5 sub for F#
A-C-B-E

sub for F#,B,E

A-C-B-Bb

You can also preceded or follow any chord with it's b5 sub

One more....Doo Wop used the minor iv chord a lot (so did rock ...one of Lennon and Macca's fave device they pinched...erm...were influenced by... )

In reality... it's an altered dominant chord

ex
in C Major

I-vi-IV-V
C-ami-F-G

using the iv sub

I-Vi-IV-iv-
C-ami-F-fmi

notice iv is a sub for G(dominant)
f minor=F-Ab-C

which is a Gb9/11 without a root(1) or 3rd
F=7
Ab=b9
C=11

I know this is a lot of theory but it's just the explanation for what "sounds" are.They are applicable to all keys so the "thinking" is only done to "clarify" the result.

okay one more by "playing with the basic f minor.... alter only "1" note
F minor=F-Ab-C
Ab Major=Ab-C-Eb
D diminished=D-F-Ab

for "tight" voicing start with the "Ab" as lowest note. As you can hear and see there are many many possibilities All have been used before but Context is king!