Chord substitution - summary so far

If you've been following our previous lessons, you might have discovered a basic principle of chord substitution that you also can use spontaneously in improvisation. This principle is: create chord progressions built on fifths or chromaticism. Let us recap what we've said so far, and also develop the thought a bit more.

  The dominant chord may be substituted with a chord placed a fifth below it. Let's say we have G7-Cmaj progression, where G7 is the dominant chord. The chord a fifth below G7 would be Dmin7 (here we are following tonality constrains). This results in Dm7-G7-Cmaj progression. We could now go even further and introduce a chromatic chord substitution, which would smoothly move from D to C, in this case we replace G7 with Db7. The result will be Dm7-Db7-Cmaj.

  Both of the substitutes above may be substituted even further. Elaborating on the idea of fifths substitution on Db7, we could put Ab7 in front of the substitute, or: Dm7-Ab7-Db7-Cmaj.

  The II chord is a special one, in the sense that it can be followed by other chords than V7. We could go a minor third above or below Dm7, creating new II-V progressions that end in either Imaj or VImin chords. For example: Dm7-Fm7-Bb7-Cmaj, or in the other situation: Dm7-Bm7b5-E7-Amin7.

  The last example leads us to substitutions of the I chord. In the example above, Imaj was replaced by its parallell - the VImin. In other lesson we also mentioned the substitution to IIImin, which is made e.g.: Dm7-G7-Em7 or by chromatic substitution Dm7-D#dim-Em7. Sometimes, I chord is long-drawn, over a few bars. It can be made more interesting bu substitution, for example: Cmaj7-F9-Em7-Ebdim-Dm7-G7-Cmaj7. In this case we went a fifth down, followed by three descending chromatic steps, and ended in V7-Imaj.

  Progressions of fifths are a common trait of jazz songs. In these situations, minor chords can be replaced by dominant 7 chords, on the very same bass note. For example, a progression of Em7-Am7-Dm7-G7-Cmaj7 can be replaced by E7-Am7-D7-G7-Cmaj7. Do you also see any possibilities of throwing in some chromatic substitutions here?

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