Altered Chords Made Easy

Welcome. In my next few lessons I want to lay out some simple structures that I found valuable when altered chords became more a part of my vocabulary. Although, this is marked as intermediate. Hopefully some of you beginners will be able to catch on pretty quick as well. So in this vid we are looking at a simple Dominant 9th voicing. The alterations we are making will be #9 and b9. Once you see the logic in these alterations you will soon be able to take any chord you know and do all kinds of things with it easily. I have tabbed out below everything on the video. Example 1 You will see 3 chords written out. The first is my 'unaltered E7'. Second is the Emaj7 that this chord is derived, built from the A form(or the A shape) Then the E9 voicing which we are working from. Example 2 Here we have raised the 9th degree and created the E7#9. Following it I tabbed out that little Jimmy Hendrix sounding riff for your enjoyment. Example 3 E7b9. As I explain in the video, we create this chord using the same approach as the #9. Only this time we flatten the 9th degree. You will also hear that I was playing some other chords at that point. All of those voicing's were actually diminished chords. The diminished chord is a great substitute for any Dominant b9 chord. If you build an E7b9 and remove the root note. You are left with an Ab diminished chord. Also, as you may not be aware. Diminished chords are symmetrical. What that means is, you can play the same chord up the fret board in minor thirds and you will always have the same chord. The root note will change but all the notes within the chord remain the same. The Diminished chords I played are also tabbed out. They are as follows. Ab dim - B dim - Ab dim (again) - F dim. The one I left out was D dim. If you play the F dim and move it down 3 semi tones (minor 3rd) you will have the D dim chord. If you found this informative. Keep watching, ill be adding more videos soon to out 'Altered Chord's Made Easy' tutorial. Keep Grooving!