How Do You Actually USE Fancy CHORDS In A Progressions?
You may know I have a (quite popular) series of "short" videos about Fancy Chords on guitar.
Now, let me confess the thing that no proper YouTuber will ever confess (*):
I hate the "short" video format
Why?
Because the thing I care about is to help people make music. In 60 seconds, the best that can be done is to share one fancy chord or one exercise, and gloss over all the other important things (**)
What is the missing important stuff?
Well, for instance, once you learn a fancy chord, it would be interesting to see how you use it in a chord progression!
"But Tommaso, can't you simply make a longer video on the missing stuff and publish it on YouTube?"
Yes, you got it! That's exactly what I'm doing right here, right now.
In this video will see how to take a fancy chord - any fancy chord, whether you learned it from my short videos, or you found it somewhere else, or you came up with it yourself - and use it in a chord progression.
The key point is to understand where these chords can actually be used (see the video below). Then you will have a much easier time putting them in your music - indeed, it will be easy and natural.
(*) but I don't care because I'm not a "YouTuber". I'm a musician and music teacher that happens to post on YouTube. Big difference!
(**) Time limitation notwithstanding, I still make it a point to give information you can actually use in each short I make - rather than showing off for likes.
There are many reasons why you could find hard to write chord progressions: maybe you don't understand complex chords to begin with? Maybe you hardly understand simple chords, or maybe you just want to expand your knowledge on chords in general? If so, you should check out my Complete Chord Mastery guitar course to immediately start improving your knowledge of chords and harmony on the guitar.
Video Transcription
Hello internet, so nice to see you! Recently, I posted a series about fancy chords on guitar, it's in my shorts. So in my short video in my channel, of course, and not in my literal shorts, and I received that good questions about that. How do I use this chord? Any ideas for progression, which this chord would fit? Well, that these are fantastic questions.
Once you learn one of those fancy chords, how do you use them? How do you write chord progression with those, so we're gonna, I'm going to show these to you for the chord that it was asked here, which is a B6add11, which sounds this way. But whatever today will work for any kind of fancy chord.
So let's see what is this chord. And then that's what you have to do every time you have one of those fancy chord, let's see what's in the chord, this chord is played this way.
So the bass note, it's a B note. So you want to write the notes close by so you know what they are, that's a B note. The ninth here is an F sharp, that's the fifth over the B. So so far, is just a power chord. And then we have this note here, which is a G sharp, this G sharp is the sixth of the chord. So again, if I write them at the root note, the fifth and the sixth is eight here, it's D sharp, and that's the major third of the chord.
So it's a major chord, then we have another B open string, okay, which is the root again. And then we have these E note open string, which is the fourth or the eleven depending how you want to write it. And so you see, we have essentially a major chord, the root, third and fifth and other routes, and a 16, and an 11.
So this is typically called B6add11. Though there could be other names for it, that's great. So the first thing is to see what's in your fancy chord, okay? And see what are the intervals. Second thing you need to do is to see where does this fit in a key in a major key when I have the first chord, the second chord, the third chord, the fourth chord, the fifth chord, the six chord, all in lowercase, and the seven diminish, which one of those chords will be a major chord, the supports both the six and the four.
Well, there are only three major chords, the one, four, and the five, again, assuming a major key, the one will have bought a six and the four. So that's check. Next one we want, the fourth will have us we support a six, but it will not support a four, two because it will have a sharp four, you can do this just by looking at the notes inside. If this would be C major, these chord would be F major and a perfect fifth fourth from F would be a B flat and there's no B flat in C major. But anyway, just to see what that does intervals.
So this does not work, the fifth chord will support both the fourth and the sixth. So that's check. So out of all those chords, this B6add11 could be the first chord of the key, or could be the fifth chord of the key if we are in major, if we are in minor will have to do everything starting from this one. So if we are in minor, that's for a major minor. The first chord is that the A minor the second seventh chord is diminished.
The third chord is major and so on and so forth. The same thing is before and I'm thinking here natural minor but a waste and keeping the fifth minor and the sixth and the seventh and of course, flat three, flat six, flat seven, and the sixth at 11. The intervals of a major third, a major sixth and a perfect fourth would be supported only by the third chord and the first seven chord in a minor key.
Step number two, once you know what's in your chord, see where they fit inside a key. Okay, and then you write your chord progression accordingly. If we take these first here, then our B6add11 will be the first chord of the key so we're in the key of B major. Okay, so we could play any chord progression that fits the key of B major I can start from these B and then a play a 145. So the first chord in B major the second chord in the major will be E in this case I can play I don't know something like an E major seven just to fit it To the fifth chord will be an F sharp, F sharp seven or the open string.
And then I can go back to my B6add11 of course. Okay, so the idea is, first, I see what's in the chord and I see what position this chord can fit. And then I find out the key that work around this chord. Okay, so in this case, I'm just assigning these B6add11 is just my the first chord of my key now that's not a great progression, honestly, so one for fun, but it will work, or the B could be the fifth chord in the major scale.
If B is the fifth chord in the major scale, B is the fifth, then the first is E. So I'm in the key of E major. So at that point, I can play I do not always 1-4-5 starting in E, then these a with the open string and my fancy B and back to E. to Now the chord acquire a different sound if you want, because now it's the fifth chord of the major key.
This chord progression is okay, but a bit bland for two reasons. One is just a one four five and two, they are in the major key, this stuff sounds better, usually in the minor keys because we have more tension, okay, putting the B on the in the third position may work but honestly is not my favorite, I would like to put this B in the flat seventh position, if B is my flat seventh note. Then my first is C sharp. So I'm in C sharp minor in this case.
And so I will start from a C sharp minor a fancy way to play C sharp minor is to play the C sharp power chord for that the first thing open so 46600. And then I can be immediately might be as it sounds good.
I can make it even fancier than playing the C sharp in this way, I played the ninth chord note version, so I have 468 zero and then I play the B then I can just slide off the foil my fingers down to fret to hit these a that would be an A major with a 69 and a 96 Nine and a six nine. Okay, so what do you need?
First, take your fancy chord and analyze it and see what are the intervals inside Second, see how those intervals fit in a key and if your chord is the first, second, third, fourth, or whatever are the key. And if you can occupy more than one position. Third, decide which one you want to your chord to be among all those positions, okay? And you can get the successively, you can try all the possibilities to see what comes out.
And then find in what key you are by reverse engineering. If my B is the seventh of a minor key, then my key is a C sharp minor. And then just like play any chord progression in the key, hitting your fancy chord, and boom, it will work out it's just like that, you can do a little bit of trial and error for derailed the chords and for what other strange things you put on the other chord and all those tensions and intervals.
But that's really easy to do honestly. And if you want some help in getting to know all these in learning your chords and getting to know see how you can go around the fretboard really easily. I have a course called complete chord mastery and you're gonna find the link on the top right of the video. Just click there, read through the page to see if you like it.
It will really help you understand how all those chords are around the fretboard and you will able to really be able to make all this kind of mental calculation at a moment's notice without even writing it down once you get familiar with that, okay, so that's how you use fancy chords in your chord progression. This is Tommaso Zillio for musictheoryforguitar.com and until next time, enjoy.