You know, in preparing for this blog I realized we really have not talked at all about the single most powerful diagram that explains music which is called the Circle of Fifths!

From a circle of fifths diagram you can see all the notes and chords to any major or natural minor key or any of the seven musical modes for that matter. Learning how to use this one diagram will greatly expand your options in songwriting. Here we go!

Well, this blog was going to dive deeper into cadences and turnarounds, but upon reviewing my last few blogs, I noticed I had more to explaining about the relationships between functional harmony and common chord substitutions. So, here we go.

Substitute, one of my favorite Who songs! I actually got to play drums on that song at a benefit gig back in the 2000s and had a blast channeling my best Keith Moon!! However, we are going to talk about substituting chords today and not an altered ego.

One of the biggest advantages of understanding just a little of how music works lead you to the knowledge of which chords you can substitute to enhance the message or mood of the lyrics. In this blog we will discuss parallel minor and major chord substitutions and (dare I say it) other inter-modal substitutions.

Music, as in almost all art forms, is more meaningful, more interesting, more emotional, and more satisfying when there is a buildup of tension followed by release (resolution). In music, you build tension in a chord progression and by moving away from the tonal center of the key and reach release when you return to the tonal center.

It was Harland Howard, a prominent Nashville songwriter, who described country music songwriting as “three chords and the truth.” Well the three chords that are most commonly used in songwriting are the I, IV, and V chords of a major key. You will find some combination of the I, IV, and V chords in blues, country, folk, traditional, polka, zydeco, and many world music forms too.

In this blog we will begin to explore functional harmony, chord progressions, chordal cadences, and chord substitutions.

Music, as in almost all art forms, is more meaningful, more interesting, more emotional, and more satisfying when there is a buildup of tension followed by release (resolution). In music, you build tension in a chord progression and by moving away from the tonal center of the key and reach release when you return to the tonal center.

In this Blog I have tried to tie together what we have learned about the basics of music using the piano and connect these concepts to the guitar. We will approach the guitar by looking at what are probably the first five chords shapes you learned on the guitar.