Turnarounds! Chord Substitutions

[00:01:00]All All right, full disclosure. I already shot this lesson once, but it came out to 17 minutes, and that seems way too long. So, I'm going to try to be a little more concise this time around.

[00:01:11]I made a PDF that's got the tab for this turnaround plus the last turnaround in I did here on the channel and the one I'm going to do next. So, if you'd like to get your hands on that, there's a link below where you can go and download the tab. I'll probably go ahead and post the longer version that I shot over in my membership, the finger style 5. That's where I teach how to play traditional blues tunes including tunes in a like trouble in mind, how long blues and sitting on top of the world. So if you'd like to learn more about that and learn some new tunes, you can apply this turnaround, too. Go to fretboard confidential.com to learn more. All right, let's do the lesson.

[00:01:58]Chord substitutions are cool because they give you a way to add some new colors and sounds to traditional blues.

[00:02:07]And in this case, we're going to take the last four bars of a 12 bar blues in A and look at what to do specifically for the turnaround figure in bars 11 and 12 and also how to lead into that all the way from bar 9. So, this will slot in where a traditional turnaround slots in, but it'll give you those new colors as well. So, here's what's going on.

[00:02:31]When you get to the last line of a blues in A, typically it goes from E, the five chord, to D7, the four chord, and then to the one chord. And that's where one of these guys comes in.

[00:02:50]So let's start from the back end. Let's start with this.

[00:03:00]Now ordinarily we've got a bar of A with this walk down and then we come back to A before going to the E chord.

[00:03:12]the chord substitution part is going to come in here where we go and then go to a B7 chord instead and then to an E chord. So instead of just sitting on static on an A chord, we're going to start off the same way.

[00:03:39]Go to this C in the bass, which is really implying a C7 chord. And then go to a B7 with a flat 13 on top, third fret on the high string, and then hammer onto an E chord.

[00:04:00]And that takes us back around. The literal fingering of that, the bass is going like this. A and then a G and an Fsharp and a C and then a B and an E and a G sharp on top. We're holding this note for a while until we go over here. And then when you go to grab the B7, you're going to grab thumb, index on the third string, ring finger on the high string and get the third fret on the high string and then open and then hammer on third fret open to first fret while playing the high string. So hammering on just ahead of that E in the bass. So, and then playing the third in the bass, implying this E chord with a G sharp in the bass. That's taking you back up to A in the beginning of the next time through the 12 bar form. Now, that happens in the broader context of the whole last four bars of a blues where usually you're starting on E going to a D and then here you are doing the figure, but instead we're going to do this B minor 7 to E, Fsharp 7, B9 9 E13 and back to A. Now, there's reasons for all of those things working the way they do, but let's just go through the chords and see what they actually sound like.

[00:05:55]So, we're going to have a B minor 7.

[00:05:57]Here's the root, the flat 7, and the flat third.

[00:06:03]And then E7. Here's the root and the third. The root on top.

[00:06:10]Fsharp 7 flat 13. Here's the root.

[00:06:14]Here's the flat 7. Here's the third.

[00:06:17]Here's the flat 13.

[00:06:19]B9.

[00:06:21]It looks like a B7, but your pinky comes over to the ninth, which is the second fret on the second string. There's B9.

[00:06:30]There's E13. Here's the root, the flat 7 on the fourth string, the third, and the 13.

[00:06:40]So, those are the chords. Now, the thumb is telling you the roots of the chords basically, but it would be cool to have some licks on top.

[00:07:04]And I'm doing that basically by just pulling notes out of the chord and then using some adjacent open strings to get some extra sounds mostly. So on the B minor 7, we've got these two notes on the fourth and the sorry on the second and third string.

[00:07:23]So we're playing the B minor 7. You can come back to get go from flat third back to the second and then the third again and then hammer on to the E chord.

[00:07:35]Here's the major third and here's the root on top.

[00:07:40]And then when you play the F sharp 7 with the flat 13, you can grab the whole chord, thumb, index, middle, and ring.

[00:07:48]And then use the high string again.

[00:07:52]Then you can grab the whole B9 up to the second string. And then you use the third string for a melody.

[00:08:02]And then the fourth string and the third string. And then using the top of the E13 chord, go to the high string. And then grabbing this blues note, it's the flat third to the second of A. So you got the third and the bass of the E chord. And then you got this move, which is going to take you into the down beat of the turnaround figure itself. So, and we're back around to the top of the 12 bar blues form. So, there it is.

[00:08:58]Pretty sure I managed to keep that under 10 minutes. So, that's good. Again, you can get the tab to see it all laid out on paper if you want. Just go to the link below to download the PDF. If you'd like to learn more blues repertoire, technique, vocabulary, all that stuff, check out the fingerstyle 5 membership at fretboardconfidential.com.

[00:09:20]If you've got a question or comment about today's lesson, leave it for me down below. I'd love to hear from you.

[00:09:26]And as always, thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.