EXTENDED VERSION + TABS for "How to Reharmonize a Song in 7 Levels"

yes this makes perfect sense. Thank you. Considering you are not following the same chords I will try to understand once more. Afaiu, we are using relative major of min chord and then sub it and makes sense. I had an impression before like we can tritone sub only ii and V7 of tone. But apperantly all diatonic chords are eligible for tritone sub.

Hey! So Bm and Dmaj7 could be viewed almost as the same chord, they have a relative relationship so they can be substituted with one another. Tritone dominant to Dmaj7 would be Eb7 and to Bm it would be C7. Just think of tritone subs as a half-step above the chord it's leading to. In the video, I think I'm not following the exact same basic chord pattern in all the steps so that may be why you are confused. But the method is the same regardless of what chord you are going to. Hope that makes sense

Lucas Brar

Thanks for the comprehensive lesson Lucas. This is what I was trying to understand myself on scattered lessons all around. I have a question for tritone substitution. Chords are not in the same order with step 2. Are we combining several chords into one and then substitute? Because in step 2 we are starting with Bm but in tritone subs we are starting with Dmaj7. I could not understand that part.

I watched the video, I'm reading the pdf - my brain is exploding! Great Stuff!

Mark Sheffield

thanks for the lesson by the way :)

Hello ! Quick question for step one : I can hear that harmonizing a note with it's "third major or minor" changes the quality of the chord ( the song is in D major, but harmonizing that first note to it's third makes it sound minor). It's kind of messing up with my brain (already :). My question is : why wouldn't we call this harmonizing with 6th and augmented 5fth ? I feel like it would make more sense as the actual third of a note would be 1/2 or 1 tone up from the root. Can u help me figure it out ? (sorry for my english)

Thank you! I will! Stay tuned and thanks for your support

Lucas Brar

Great Lesson,please launch more "How to Reharmonize a Song" Lessons

correction - a7 to D is not a secondary dominant but the primary dominant as we are in the key of D

Lucas Brar

I see what you mean, and it is a bit unclear as the different levels are not directly a progression of the previous ones in the sense of using the same chords. You can do that, but I wanted to make each level sound in a particular way so it's not an exact progression. So the diminshed G (which is a G7b5) instead of Gmaj7 would work as a secondary dominant to F#m7(a tritone substitution, or half-step approach chord) and the A7 on the second melody note would be a secondary dominant leading to Dmajor7. Whenever you have a dominant seven chord, you should look to what chord is coming after to understand the tension/release. But again, what is confusing to you is that I'm not using the exact same diatonic chord as in step 2. I did it this way to make it digestable for the average viewer.

Lucas Brar

Hi Lucas, great class! I understand from step two that you can build one only chord from the major scale on each of the melody notes. Makes sense. In step three you suggest to add all 7D chords leading to the diatonic chords identified in step 2. However you change those chords. E.g. the third note of the melody (B) is harmonized with a dminished G instead of a Gmaj7. where is the diminished chord coming from? Even less intuitive is the substitution of F#m7 with A7b on the second melody note (A).. Can you help me making sense of these (beautiful!) changes?

Yes a third below a note is the same as sixth above. But you want the note to be in the bass :)

Lucas Brar

I mean the 6th above the note, which works the same I guess. For example for the note D you added the note B for bass, which is the 6th for the D. Would that work. Thanks for the 2-5-1 comment

Thanks Lucas,