Chord Substitution Tricks: Any Chord Can be a Dominant (with Video)

Easy chord substitution trick...

You can do it with any chord in any progression!

You will Learn More and Play More with Play Ukulele NOW.

Find out for yourself why teachers and students have depended on Play Ukulele NOW Methods and Songbooks since 2009

DISCLOSURE: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS, MEANING I GET A COMMISSION IF YOU DECIDE TO MAKE A PURCHASE THROUGH MY LINKS, AT NO COST TO YOU. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO.

Find all my chord related posts here: Chord Tips and Tricks

This is the easiest of chord substitutions because it applies to any chord!

You may have noticed in a recent lesson (Cool Blues Shuffle Strum Made Easy) that in the blues progression we made all the chords dominants.

This is the simple rule we follow to make that happen...

Watch:

Here's the uke I play in the video:

Kala KA-SMHS Solid Mahogany Soprano Ukulele

All solid mahogany soprano - you should get one...

Do me a favor and 'like' the video on YouTube and post a comment (on YouTube) to let me know what you think - thanks!  

Let's try it...

First you'll need to know what the dominant chord forms are you can find them all in my free chord book - WE'RE USING DOMINANT 7 CHORDS HERE. Grab it now if you don't already have it.

We start with what we might call the "Heart and Soul" progression or "Standard changes" from my "Secrets of the Chord Chain" books.

If you played with some jazz players and they yelled out "Standard Changes" this would be the progression you're to play.

Here we go:

It's a simple I - vi - ii - V progression with a dominant for the V chord (like we usually do).

The first thing I would do is make the vi chord a dominant  - you may already know that because I've done it in many lessons.

Let's take a look:

The C# will lead better to the Dm in this progression.

You will also notice that the A7 is the secondary dominant of the Dm - that's another reason this sounds great!

You may leave the progression like this - you may only want one Dominant sub...

Now lets take another step - we'll make the Dm a dominant as well:

Here we have all dominants with the exception of the I chord, you may like the progression like this - you may want to take the next step.

It's interesting to not that the D7 is the secondary dominant of the G7.

Next we move in and sub a dominant for the I chord:

Now we have all dominants - just like we did in our blues progression. This can be done with any chords in any progression.

These could be dominant 13's or dominant 9 chords (etc...) too... That'll be another lesson.

To learn how to create beautiful chord progressions in any key get my "Secrets of the Chord Chain" books.

You may not like the dominant for the I chord because it dose not resolve as well as some of the other options we've talked about, you can use a different sub the I of for the ending if you like - so that it resolves better.

Share me!

​

Get your FREE eBook!

* indicates required

Email Address *