SUBSTITUTE Working Backwards

Normally, we start from a tired old chord progression and spice it up with interesting substitutes, but the first two chords in this issue’s progression were the result of idle noodling. They weren’t intended as substitutes for anything; they just sounded nice. But it turns out they’re just Bm and E7 chords, albeit with unusual voicings. So what next?

DO WE FIND a chord progression starting with Bm-E7 and use our new chords as the starting point for a shiny substituted version? Or shall we just work with these two chords and see where we go? It actually turned into a kind of musical thought-experiment. We have this little two-note shape with two open strings… can we create a whole chord progression by just shifting it around? As a result, our ‘starting’ progression is contrived; it came after the fact! But this reverse process is good practice, broadening your harmonic awareness for future substitutions.

HERE’S the basic shape. If you’re playing these chords with fingerpicking or in an arpeggio style, you’ll need to be aware that the bottom note is not the root!

BM-E7 IS A pretty common chord change, with the characteristic Dorian sound (think Minor-key funk or classic Santana).

IN A NORMAL substitute, this would probably have been a more predictable chord, but our choices were dictated by the moveable shape. The G takes us into an implied key change…

…FOLLOWED BY this one, which takes us even further from the original key centre. As a result we’ve ended up with an unusual progression that we might never have found in the usual way!