Chord substitutions can be a great way to take a simple progression of chords and add extra colour and feel. On guitar this can be done to all the open chord shapes with some simple modifications. These can be used on songs you already know and are also great as a writing tool to generate new ideas. Here is my top ten chord substitutions for singer/songwriters.
Let’s take “All Of Me '' by John Legend: The chords are Em, C, G, D.
With embellishments we can try Em7 Cadd9 Gmaj7 Dsus2
Let’s look at another example “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley. The chords are
C Am x2 F G C G
C F G Am
F E7 Am
With embellishments we can try,
Cmaj7 Am7 x2 Fmaj7 G5 Cadd9 G
Cmaj7 Fmaj7#11 G5 Am9
Fmaj7 E7 Am9
Embellishments don’t have to be used all the time. You can add and take away notes from the chord you are playing to add brief moments of change. This works especially well on repetitive chord progressions. If the song you are playing requires a capo all these embellishments still work and sound great higher up on the neck of the guitar. If you have any more questions or want to bounce some of your songwriting ideas of us we’d be happy to help. - Adrian