Chords for Walking Bass Lines: "Rhythm Changes"

One, two, three, [A] four.
_ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Bb] _
_ _ [C] _ _ [Gbm] _ _ [B] _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Dm] _ [Bb] _ _ Hi, Bill Harrison again.
I [N] am talking to you today about the standard I got rhythm changes.
And we are playing in the traditional key of B flat.
Just very quickly, the changes for the tune on the A section are just
one, [C] six, two, five, one, six, [F] two, five.
[Bb] Going to [Eb] four, and then going to [Ab] seven.
[G] And then just a very quick turnaround.
_ _ [N] Same thing on the second A.
And then the bridge is also a big turnaround.
But instead of going one, six, two, five, [D] we are going [G] three, [C] six, two, [F] five.
And every chord on the bridge is a dominant seven.
[N] So _ _ what are our chord substitution possibilities here?
So we are going [Bb] from the one, [C] six, two, five.
[N] We want to find some other pathways to get through these changes.
Well, one thing we can do is for some kind of root relief,
we can go to the three chord instead of the one chord.
So instead of always [Bb] going one, six, two, [D] five,
we can go to the D minor seven _ as a [Bb] substitute for B flat.
Here's why.
Here's your B flat [D] major.
_ Here's D minor. _
_ So all I'm doing is taking this B [Bb] flat major seven, add the [D] ninth.
_ [Am] _ _ [Bb] _ And lopping [D] off the B flat, look what I [Db] get.
_ _ D minor seven.
It's a three for one substitution.
Very common.
On the [Gm] other chords, we have a few options as well.
So instead of going to G seventh, [G] _ _ _
we can [B] use this B,
either thinking of it as B minor seven flat five.
[Dm] _ _ _ [G] Or just G seventh without the G.
_ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _
[G] We can also think of it as G seven flat nine.
[F] _
[Ab] _ [G] In which case, the B chord would become a fully diminished seven.
[Ab] _
I have to say, I think that's the most common substitution on that chord.
In this tune.
The other possibility is to use the D [Db] flat seventh.
_ Our tritone substitution.
Remember, [G] harmonically speaking, G seven [Db] and D flat seven _ [D] are the same.
_ So you have options there.
You can [B] _ [C] go_
[Bb] _ _ [Db] _ [C] Or_
And then we already [B] talked about how you can use [D] the D minor instead of one.
What about the F seven?
That's [C] the only chord we haven't discussed yet.
Well, on the F seven, _ [Eb] again, you have [Ab] this A minor seven flat five.
_ [Eb] _ _ _ [A]
Or again, it [F] could be F seven _ _ [Gb] with a flat at ninth.
In which case, you get A diminished.
_ _ _ [C] _
[A] Perfectly acceptable.
The other [Bb] option on the F seven is to use B seventh.
It's [F] tritone.
_ _ _ [A] _ [N] Okay, those two notes are harmonically equivalent.
Let me play some pathways through this _ sequence now.
So you can see how I [Bb] use some of these options.
I'll take it kind of slow so you can see.
_ _ [F] _
_ [B] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ [Ab] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [G] _
[C] _ _ [Bb] _ [A] _ _ [Eb] _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [F]
Okay, so you see I [Bb] tried to use the B [G] in place of the G seventh sometimes.
[A] And the A in place of the F.
[B] Or the B in place of the F.
[N] So we have some different ways, different goal notes that we can head towards.
And that's really helpful.
_ So now that you've seen some of those pathways, I'm going to play some of it for you.
And you can see how I integrate some of these chord substitutions into my line.
I'm afraid you're going to have to work on the bridge yourself.
[C] And as always, happy walking.
One, two, three, four.
[G] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ [E] _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ [Gm] _ _ [Eb] _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Gm] _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
_ [F] _ _ [G] _ _ [Ebm] _ _ [G] _
[C] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [B] _