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Old August 13th, 2006
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Tekker Tekker is offline

Playing guitar for over 10 years.
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Last Online: 1 Week Ago 07:48 PM
Location: Oregon
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Common Tone Substitution

Common tone substitution means that chords that share common notes can be substituted for each other. For example:

C major: C E G

E minor: E G B
A minor: A C E

The bolded notes are notes that the chords have in common with C.

Because Em and Am both share two notes with C, either one of them can be played in place of C (The reverse is also true and C can be played in place of either Em or Am.) This method works with a variety of chords, for example bmurnahan used 7th chords.

Cmaj7: C E G B
Emin7: E G B D

These share three notes and can be played in place of each other.



'Cause I don't wanna read the book, I'll watch the movie.

Tekker's Lessons on GfB&B: Music Theory, Recording, and General Guitar