Intro
Too many chords when you look at a lead sheet ?
Improvising over fewer chords may make playing less frustrating, more creative and may even help you to memorise the overall chord layout of a tune.
Let's look at each of the above assumptions!
1 Less frustrating:
If you see only three chords instead of twenty you'll breath a sigh of relief ! Which chords will you see?
If we grey out the non primary diatonic chords and retain just three chords we'll see
the I, the IV and the V chords- the primary diatonic chords.
These are the chords that will form the backbone of our song's new chord progressions:
2 Easier to remember:
Using only three chords makes it easier to remember the chord sequence.
Play and sing the tune and note where the melody notes land on the three chords.
3 More creative:
What shall we do with all the greyed-out chords?
After testing how the three primary chords sound when played over the chart's original chords we may be able to add altered greyed-out chords in the form of secondary diatonic family chords, eg Am7 instead of A7. The addition of secondary dominants and diminished passing chords add colour and promote the smooth transition of one chord to the next: