Substitute Chords - part 10 (the last part!)

We’ve now looked at 9 ideas for using substitute chords as an acoustic guitarist to add interest, strength and beauty to your sound.

In this last post let’s bring it all together and use those shapes for playing in awkward, non guitar friendly keys. So far we’ve looked at playing in the open keys of G C D A and E but what about combining those with a capo to play in keys like F#, Bb, A#, Eb etc? Most of the time people know one capo position for each weird key but if you work it through there are 4 or even sometimes 5 usable capo positions for use in conjunction with in substitute chord shapes we’ve explored.

Take a look at the table above. It gives you recommended, (green), not so recommended (black) and downright difficult (red) capo positions for playing in any key whilst using the G C D and E based shapes we’ve looked at over the last set of posts. If you put it to memory you’ll start to be able to play in awkward keys with a variety of shapes. As to how to work it out for your yourselves, some of you mathematical type will pick up the patterns straight away. Otherwise there is a whole section on the Intermediate Acoustic Worship Guitar course that outlines a logical and straightforward way to work out any capo position in any key, with lots of tests and exercises. Read More »