Dominant Chord Motion

Rhythm Short #1

Dominant Chord Motion
Motion is the key to making great rhythm guitar parts. I say it in the video and I’m saying it again. If you want to sound good, find ways to add motion to your chords. MELODY. Create melodies on top of your chords.

To do that you just need to know your chord inversions. You gotta know your triads. If you know your triad inversions then you can jump to any area you want.

For this video we’re playing over G7, but we’re gonna move through the inversions of the B diminished chord.

Here’s why; if you take the notes of the G7 chord, you have G B D and F. Take away the G and you have B D and F, the three notes of the B diminished triad.

B is the 3rd of the G chord, and so building the triad from the 3rd gives us the important notes of the G7 chord. This is especially useful when you are playing with a bass player, because you can avoid the root note and let them play it.

This idea goes way further though, because take for instance a C major 7. That would be C E G and B.

The notes E G and B make an E minor triad. So if you play the triad from the 3rd of the chord, in this case C is our chord so E is the 3rd, we get and E minor.

And this E minor is the 3, 5 and 7 of the C major 7 so it’s a perfect way to play a C major 7 without the root.

You can also extend this idea over any other chord.

I’m telling you this because that is the basis of today’s video. I’m just connecting the B diminished triad shapes with notes from the scale that goes with this G7 (mixolydian) including a couple of chromatic leading notes. This makes what I think of as a pathway.

The idea is that you learn this and then try making your own ideas with this pathway. I use these types of “pathways” over all different chord types and practicing them has given me a lot of benefit.