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Guitar: Lesson 11

Replacing Complex Chords with Triads

By Zack Cart

 

Prerequisites:

You should be able to understand and perform the concepts and techniques outlined in the following lessons before attempting this lesson:

Guitar: Lessons 1-10

Music Theory: Lessons 1-9

 

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In the previous lesson we learned about movable chord shapes, and I mentioned that I would teach you to replace some of the more complicated chords in use with these simple ones. This will work fine for most rock/pop tunes. However, if you begin to delve into Jazz and Jazz influenced genres, there will likely be many chords for which we do not have a suitable replacement yet.

 

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As we learned in Music Theory: Lesson 9, Introduction to Seventh Chords, A seventh chord is merely a triad with an added seventh. As such, we can (for now) ignore the seventh of these chords and instead use the basic triad from which the chord was derived. This applies to other, more complicated chord names as well.

 

For example, Major 7 chords are essentially extended or "decorated" Major triads. Unsurprisingly, we can therefore replace any Major 7 chords in a song with plain Major chords of the same root and end up with a harmony that will function with the melody. To be fair, we will lose much of the original character and flavor of the tune. Fear not, later we will learn to create as many chord shapes as you could possibly desire!

 

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Below I have created a chart of common possible chord names, and the major or minor triadic chords with which they can be replaced. Again, these function harmonically with whatever else may be occurring in the song, but they will change the overall effect.

 

 

Chords that can be replaced with Major Triads	Chords that can be replaced with Minor Triads
Major 7 Major 7 (#11) Major 7 (b5) Major 9 Major 6 Major 6/9 Major 13 Major 7 (almost any alterations) Major Add 2 Major Add 6 Dominant 7 Dominant 7 (almost any alterations) 9 13	minor 7 minor 9 minor 6 minor 6/9 minor 7 (almost any alterations) minor Add 2 Minor Add 9

 

 

The above chart is only a starting place for possible replaceable chords, but should serve to help you through many songs which are mostly triads, with only an occasional "spicier" chord. Good luck!