The VISUAL Way To Play BACKDOOR Cadences On Guitar
“Backdoor cadences” are super-cool chord progressions that have been used in several styles of music.
Soul, R&B, Jazz, Funk, Gospel use backdoor cadences all the time… but I’ve heard them in classic rock… and even in late Romantic music.
For some strange reason, guitar players are convinced that backdoor cadences are hard or mysterious…
… and I think it’s because most guitarists do not know the visual way to ‘see’ them on the fretboard.
Indeed, most people are trying to understand these cadences "in theory’ like…
“I’m taking the VII7 from the parallel minor” or “play the half-diminished 7th chord build on the 4th degree of the scale”…
…but you don’t need to do any of that on a guitar.
There is a very simple ‘trick’ that allows you to see not only backdoor cadences, but also tritone substitutions and a few other ‘esoteric’ chord substitutions…
… and it’s so ridiculously easy that you can learn it and apply it in minutes.
(I’m having a lot of trouble writing this email because every time I think about this trick I pick up my guitar and use it to re-harmonize another song… it sounds so good!)
Watch this video to join the fun:
Now put the trick above together with what I say in the video below…
… have a fire extinguisher ready, because when you “get it” your brain may go up in flames…
More on diminished chords and their incredible power to move you to different tonal centers.
(YES you can use diminished 7th chords to change key whenever you want)
If you liked the videos above and you want to have this kind of insight for EVERYTHING on your fretboard…
… I put all my best tricks in the Complete Chord Mastery guitar course
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