Chord Progression Substitutions Can Make Any Song More Interesting

By using chord progression substitutions most any song can me made more colorful.

Good morning. This is Duane. We’ve been doing a series on how to add color into our piano arrangements. The song we took up last time was “Moon River,” and only got about half way through it or maybe a third of the way through it. In any case, let’s resume that. We’ll review what we learned and then we’ll take it from there the next section.

We’re playing the key of C based on the scale of C. We said that if the song goes like that, it’s necessary probably to do some things to make it sound fuller. By adding colorful chords, color tones, and colorful fillers, we can do that. I think we did this. We played the C69 chord with G, E, D. I leave my thumb across the B and the A. If that’s too cluttered for you, just leave out whatever you don’t like. If you don’t like the B, leave out the B and just put an A like that.

You could even do a passing tone if you want. You can even do two passing. One, two, three. That’s an A minor 7th chord and I’m playing third on the melody, sliding off the note under the third. Then when we got to F, I played the F chord of my left hand. I rolled it as an arpeggio. Then, on the right hand, I used triads. Kind of a peril thing.

Then I did a turn here. Instead of one note, I went one, two, three, four, five. There’s that polytonal chord again, F to the left hand and G in the right hand. When we get to G 7th, I change it from F to G 7th and I voice it this way: F, B, and E and back to C. Then we get into the half diminished 7th chord. The B half diminished chord. A B diminished 7th would be like that, but this is half diminished so we have four white keys. I’m playing inverted, obviously, because I have to have the melody on top.

Under D, I have B, A, and F. What I did was, I took those four notes and ran them up an octave and back down. Let’s take it from C. Up 2nd octave and came right back down and it went even lower until I played the next chord which is B flat and 7th. The way I’m voicing that is with a B flat octave in my left hand. In my right hand, I have D, C, A flat, and G.

We’re actually going to go half step slight now. Let’s back up to this. The next chord is a B flat chord, but over it I’m playing another polychord. In other words, I’m playing the C chord over B flat, over an open B flat. Then, I go to A minor 7th in my right hand, I have the notes of the A minor 7th chord. Then we go to the C chord with the left hand. Instead of going back to the C as a root, because I want to create a counter melody. We’ll go down to a G and E.

Let me back up. It’s hard to take it out of context. See, my left hand, I’m just chording. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three C. C 7th. F. There’s that B flat chord, open 7th on the left hand B flat and A flat. The right hand playing the C triad. Again, we have a polytonal situation. A minor. Then, we get to a new sequencer. That gets involved, so I’m going to save that for next time.

Let’s take it from the beginning through there and then next time, I’ll finish the song. So, here we go. Then, we’ll pick it up right there next time. So, if you enjoy these little tips about arranging, adding color tones and so on to a song, come on over to PlayPiano.com and sign up for our whole series. You’ll learn a lot over the course of time. So, bye for now.

***For lots more good stuff on piano playing come on over to my website at https://www.playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips – “Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!”

Here’s a great little book on chords and chord progressions on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chords-Chord-Progressions-Exciting-ebook/dp/B0076OUGDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404158669&sr=1-1&keywords=piano+chords+duane+shinn

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcxTxWgZZkg&feature=youtu.be

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