Dominant Substitutions

[skiroy]

I have been learning how to build Dominant 9s,11s,13s, and 13sus4 chords. They obviously can be used for a dominant chord in the progression but are they used to substitute minor AND Major chords, in Pop,R&B and smooth Jazz? I know for example a D11 is close to a dm11 and is used to replace a dm11 chord and it obviously can be use as a regular V-I or D11-GM progression.But could you use a D13 or D13sus4 for a substitution for a dm hord1?

And Finally would you use a A9,A11,A13sus4 chord as a substitution for a AMajor chord?

[Lrmusic]

When you say dominant 9s,11s,13s, and 13sus4 chords, you are referring to V and they can pretty much be substituted at will for anything as long as it sounds like what you have in mind (though it will usually be substituted for a diatonic chord). Naturally, you'll end up temporarily modulating to the I relative to that V unless you want to get fancy. Btw, all of these variations (9,11, 13 natural etc), have the same functional purpose as the simple 7, so in my examples below, feel free to treat them as the same.

Examples:

Am - (C7 - F) (C7 instead of C) (key of Cmajor)
Db - Gb - Eb7 - Ab7 (Eb7 instead of Ebm) (key of Dbmajor)

In your example, replacing the Dm11 (say we are in A minor) with D11, would indeed progress naturally to Gmaj, so yes.

The third question is kind of vague, and the answer is yes or no, depending on what sound I was going for.

For example, most "commercial pop" seems to avoid the 7 in V7 like the plague. So, this would be a coloristic reason not to. In addition, if Amaj was the the I or IV and I wanted to keep it that way, I would not, this would be a structural reason not to.

In that latter case, I would prefer to substitute the maj7/9/11/13 etc (or min if it were minor) and this would be a coloristic alteration.

Etc.

[simplemon]

I recommend the books:

1) chord chemistry by ted greene (its a guitar book jam packed with chord diagrams that are worthless to a pianist but the chord substitution section can be of interest to pianists too. Hopefully you have a guitar player friend who can help you if you get stuck on some guitarist speech. ).
Here is an example of one principle just to give you an idea of whether the guitar lingo will render this section useless to you if you dont play guitar:

"almost any dominant type chord can be moved in intervals of 3 frets as long as the LAST chord resolves into where you are going next ".

If you are a pianist .. the word "fret" will throw you But then he shows a chordal example of the principle.
C13b9 ---> Eb13b9 ---> Gb13b9 ---> A13b9 ---> D

Now maybe you can translate the word "frets" into .. "half steps and whole steps".


Even though the section on chord substitutions is only a few pages long.. it has made a world of difference in my jazz compositions.

2) "Handbook of Chord Substitutions" (laverne). This book isnt guitar oriented but it is music oriented and its a great book and well worth its cheap price and then some. It repeats some of the principles taught in chord chemistry (the standard chord substitution techniques every book teaches) but it doesnt stop there.
It's a good read complete with musical examples to analyze.

I've seen him play piano and he is incredible. Any book of his is a book of mine.


--------
would I use....."A9,A11,A13sus4 chord as a substitution for a AMajor chord?"?

that would depend on what the chord after the "A major chord" is.
If its some form of "D" chord... I might try one of those chords and see how it sounds in retaliation to the melody. The chord progression should flow smoothly and not conflict with the melody.
There are many other possibilities too. Read those books.

[skiroy]

Originally Posted by Lrmusic

In your example, replacing the Dm11 (say we are in A minor) with D11, would indeed progress naturally to Gmaj, so yes.

From here how do I get back to am?

Originally Posted by Lrmusic

For example, most "commercial pop" seems to avoid the 7 in V7 like the plague.

Etc.

What do you mean? Do they use V9,V13sus4,just plain V chords or do they avoid dominants all together?


And finally I noticed the examples you use to substitute dominants for were not the I-IV. I know the I-IV-V are the most important chords. I would assume you wouldnt want to sub the I chord with a dominant chord and of course you can use any dominant chord for the V. But are you saying to most of the time to leave the IV as a IV chord and not sub for a dominant and to save the ii,iii and vi chords to use dominant Subs.

[Branmong]

And Finally would you use a A9,A11,A13sus4 chord as a substitution for a AMajor chord?

It depends on what context you're doing the substitution. When improvising with other people, making a dominant substitution could be a bad idea as it will sound very discordant

In the case of A major, the seventh note is G#
In the case of A7/9/13, the seventh note is G

Playing G and G# together is about as discordant as you can get. So if you're a guitarist playing a A7 and the piano player is playing AMajor it may sound dreadtul.

If you're doing the substitution while writing an arrangement, as stated before, it depends on whether the dominant chord will resolve to the following chord. It also deponds on the melody note in the arrangement - e.g. whether the dominant 7th clashes with that melody note. You can, of course, get around this by using a different melody note in your new arrangement.

Hope this helps - I used to play alot of jazz and was utterly mystified about this kind of stuff when starting off.

[princeplanet]

This question (badly put, sorry) has been asked in the wrong forum, go to All About Jazz or somewhere where theory geeks eat this stuff for breakfast. Substitutions usually mean chords based on root notes other than the root note of the chord substituted for, it can be a tritone sub which simply flips the all important 3rd and 7th in a Dom chord, or it can be a chord where the root is say based on the 3rd or 5th of the root being subbed. eg, Em7 or G7 over C gives you the upper partials without the (redundant) root.

Don't get me started on "Coltrane" subs etc, we could be here all night.....

[Tone Laborer]

If you have many examples of a 11th or 13th in current pop music I like to hear them, very rare these days. What they do use often is a simple inversion, where the bass jumps off the tonic, usually leading to the next chord.

Ex. C C/E F G

Or the bass pedals on one note as in the intro to Elton John's "Your Song." John's music is a case study on inversions of all kinds, as a matter of fact.

Ex. Eb Ab/Eb Bb/Eb Ab/Eb ://

In jazz the rules are a lot more lenient. You don't mention the 6th chord and it's one of the most useful. The 6th can sub over the I (orIV,V) with less intrusion than a 7th or 9th. The 7th is usually taking you somewhere--like to the IV. There are a ton of ways to use 7ths and inversions of 7ths, however. 11s and 13s don't often work off the I as mentioned above, better off the V and even then only when some disonance is called for. Usually the 9th works better.

Diminished chords (somtimes called dim7ths) are far more helpful too. C Am7 Dm G, can be played
C C#dim Dm G6, as one example. It helps to have the bass player on board.

The Minor 7th flat 5, can sub over a minor or m7th and is one of the most beautiful chords in the book, IMHO. Here is the turnaround of Elvis "Can't help Falling in Love" key of F, with some example subs. On some live recordings you can hear his piano player on these.

/ Am D7 / Gm C / F
Am7, Adim, / Gm7-5, C6 / F
Some things are meant to be ..... Take my glands.....

Sorry for rambling, master these basic and more common building blocks first. Most of comping is somewhere in these and partials of, and inversions of these.
maj, minor, aug, dim, sus,7th, maj7, minor 7, m7-5, 6th, minor 6, 9th, minor 9, I sure I'm leaving out a few. It only takes 30 or 40 years to learn it all.

[Lrmusic]

Originally Posted by skiroy

From here how do I get back to am?



What do you mean? Do they use V9,V13sus4,just plain V chords or do they avoid dominants all together?


And finally I noticed the examples you use to substitute dominants for were not the I-IV. I know the I-IV-V are the most important chords. I would assume you wouldnt want to sub the I chord with a dominant chord and of course you can use any dominant chord for the V. But are you saying to most of the time to leave the IV as a IV chord and not sub for a dominant and to save the ii,iii and vi chords to use dominant Subs.

Good questions.

Pop music usually doesn't have many exotic variants of V, just plain old V, 95% of the time, maybe some simple suspensions. In addition to that, pop music doesn't really have many key changes.


From Gmaj to get back to Amin (where Amin's relative major is Cmaj), just throw out a Gmaj7-Cmaj.


With regard to my examples not involving I-IV, I only gave 2 examples, so sample size bias I guess. You can definitely throw out I-IV7-VIIb-V7

which would be

C-F7-Bbmaj-G7 where the G7 convenient leads back to C

etc, insert a A passing tone in the bass from Bb-G, or even make that a G7(no3)/A chord., whatever, if it sounds good, it's right.

[Lrmusic]

Originally Posted by princeplanet

This question (badly put, sorry) has been asked in the wrong forum, go to All About Jazz or somewhere where theory geeks eat this stuff for breakfast. Substitutions usually mean chords based on root notes other than the root note of the chord substituted for, it can be a tritone sub which simply flips the all important 3rd and 7th in a Dom chord, or it can be a chord where the root is say based on the 3rd or 5th of the root being subbed. eg, Em7 or G7 over C gives you the upper partials without the (redundant) root.

Don't get me started on "Coltrane" subs etc, we could be here all night.....

K I'll add on since this seems quite advanced given OP's current understanding.

Inversions/Slashes are one thing:

Ex. an Fmaj7 would normally be voiced with the F in the bass, putting the A in the bass would be the first inversion. It doesn't really matter what you do with the top voices, unless you represent all of the notes in the chord. At this point, there is a good deal of semantics. For example, some people represent F CEG by Fmaj9, C/F, Fmaj9 (no3).

Putting one chord over the root of the other would be a slash chord, for example, above, C/F, is a C major chord, with an F root. Inversions are usually written as slash chords, but a slash chord is not necessarily an inversion.

A tritone substitution is something entirely different. It's simply substituting a chord a tritone away from another chord. The inverse of a tritone is a tritone, so there's only one. It's most common with V. The reason it's so effective is that both of these chords, the V7, and the IIb7, have the 3,7 in common. The 3/7 in V7 corresponds to the 7/3 in IIb67.

[tonerowlabs]

clarification:

(1) "dominant substitutions" involve using elements of a dominant chord but changing its root. tritone substitutions are the most common:
- original = G7 - C
- tritone sub = Db7 - C
G7 and Db7 are harmonically distant but share the notes B and F, which together form a tritone and are the key elements of a the cadence, in this case, resolving to C and E. Play those on any instrument and you'll immediately hear what I'm describing.
Technically, the B is actually a Cb in the Db7 chord. That's actually quite meaningful, and I think you can really hear it in relation to the role the note plays within the harmony.

(2) "secondary dominants" are the harmonic movements mentioned in the first response. You introduce an accidental in order to create tension moving to another chord within the key. In C major, using E7 (which introduces a G#) to Am. Or D7 (F#) to move to G. Or C7 (Eb) to F, etc.

Regarding the use of dominant chords in pop, I think the way to think about this is that currently pop music is predominantly MODAL and textural. Voiceleading takes things in a totally different direction.

A few examples of voiceleading and secondary dominants in pop:
Elvis, "Love Me Tender"
Beach Boys, "God Only Knows"
David Bowie, "Life on Mars"
Radiohead, "Paranoid Android"

Most pop is modal, pentatonic and/or really more about I-IV and less about I-V. Much the same can be said about the harmonic palette of the Romantics splitting off from that of the Classical composers. Any Charles Rosen fans in the house?

Finally, you can liberally substitute 9 and 13 chords for 7 chords, just being aware of the significant textural differences between them. I'm a big fan of harmonic minimalism - the most important notes in a 13, for example, are the 3, 7 and 13. drop the 5th, even experiment with dropping the root itself. you still get that tension, texture and movement in there. Then play with finding chords that allow the 3 and 7 to resolve in new and different ways. Maybe instead of contracting inward to a third, make them expand outward to a sixth and build a strange chord around that. It will work. Lots of possibilities.

[fallforward]

Substitution just depend on the tone you are trying to achieve. You can substitute a Gmaj13 for a G major, but if you play that during a James Taylor tune it will sound out of place, like wise if you are playing a Jazz Ballad and clomp down on a plain old G major triad it won't sound right.

When someone says dominant substitution, what that implies to me is to alter the chord in some aspect. That could be using a b9,b13,#9,#11,#5,sus of some sort, etc. It could also mean to play a different chord altogether. In the common ii7 V7 I chord progession in C. It would be Dm7 G7 Cmaj7. The G being the dominant. One could add any number of alterations to that G chord as stated above. One could also play a different chord altogether like: Db7, Bb9, Fm6 being the most common ones, instead of the G7, one could then alter those chords as well. This is why I started out saying that the substitution is their to provide the type of tone you want.

Poplar ways to substitute dominant chords is to setup the tone you are going to, or pulls you to a certain sound... so like...

Fma7/G (which is G13sus4) pulls to a major chord used in pop and smooth jazz
G7(#9b13) pulls to a minor chord
G13(b9) is a very common five chord in an old Gershwin style Ballad
G7(#9) is a common five chord to add a blues sound. Listen to Michael Jackson's Man In The Mirror, at the end of the chorus whe he sings take a look at yourself and make a... That is a #9 chord. And you should hear how those two bars have a much bluesier sound than the rest of the chorus, that's because of the #9 which is the melody note also.

These 4 are the most common IMO, but there are many others

If I could impart one life lesson (in my young 28 years!) that I have learned thus far. Is to not think you have to substitute anything, but learn how to substitute everything. That way you are not being a snob, nor are you hobbled by ignorance.

Keep Playin man!
Robby