Substitute

This Issue: Clashing With The Neighbours (Part 2)

Having written about this back in issue 451, what better time than lockdown to explore Part 2 of Clashing With The Neighbours? Perhaps we can scare them, too… These chords vary between friendly and frightening – some, such as the G#7 (#9), are quite bittersweet. All of them add interest, intrigue or a sense of unease to a composition. Perhaps these are intriguing because chord voicings with adjacent semitones are not a particularly easy prospect on the guitar – they depend on the use of open strings in most cases, so it’s quite challenging to shift between keys.

When playing as part of a band, it may be possible to delegate the root note to the bass player and/or split the chord with a second guitar or keyboard player, but this requires a bit of working knowledge – namely, exactly what notes are required to get the desired effect? Subtle changes can make a big difference, so it’s worth the detailed analysis and will improve all areas of your playing.

Example 1

Using the open fifth string as an A root, this version of the major 7th sounds more exotic than the one down in open position. The semitone, happening between the G and B strings, adds tension that stops short of dissonance. Keeping the open fifth string, you can move this shape up and down for other interesting chords.

Example 2

b

Using the fifth and first strings open, this A7 13 features a semitone between the B and high E strings. It is slightly more ominous than Example 1, but it’s fairly easy to imagine it resolving to a Dmin7th, then everything is nice and safe, like it used to be…

Example 3

A dark-sounding G#7 #9 makes great soundtrack material as a hanging final chord, though can resolve nicely to a Gmaj7. This is an important function of dissonant chords such as this – they provide an excellent ‘tension-andrelease’ to keep a chord progression or song interesting.

Example 4

This G# major #9 is dissonant and foreboding. It isn’t a chord that easily resolves to another, making sense after a couple of subtle shifts; it is a potent weapon in the soundtrack/mood music toolbox. A chord like this could completely change your perception of what you see on the movie screen!

Example 5

We finish our set of chords with this relatively harmless Badd 11. It differs from a regular B major by borrowing the 4th (aka the 11th) from the rest of the parent scale. However, this should not be mixed up with a Bsus4, where the 4th replaces the 3rd; the presence of both notes gives us our semitone ‘clash’.