FUNDAMENTALS OF PASSING CHORDS

On a warm Sunday morning some years ago, the choir at the St peter's Church were all arrayed in their colorful gowns and suddenly I heard " Paul please get on the keyboard! Elvis isn't coming anymore" Yes! I have waited for this day all my life and it was time for me to jump right in and reveal what my bedroom keyboard practice was all about.  Though I didn't know it then, I felt so good that I jumped right into the play.. And then, it happened!  The song started and i joined in with my basic and straight progressions it was quite easy to notice how empty and unsatisfying my playing was.. you could tell from the stares and also with Johnson the conductor almost dropping his conducting stick because he had to stare at me and my monotonous non-professionalism. In fact, it was a devastating  performance as I could almost hear myself begging the disappointed crowd for a little applause at my courageous effort. What did Elvis have that I lacked? i asked myself the question and as time went by i understood the importance of "filling the empty space" The answer was simply passing chord..

Perhaps you too can relate with this kind of situation or you are probably just bored with playing those same old plain and empty progression, Then You may want to come with me on this musical journey as we explore some pretty simple ways to upgrade your playing using passing Chords.

What is a passing chord?

As the name implies a passing chord is simply any chord or set of chords that is played in between other chords to fill up empty space in a progression. It can also be considered a bridge chord to get from one chord to a  'destination' chord in a progression. For example, in a 1('do') | 2('re') progression, if we add any other chord(s) in between those two chords, the added chord automatically becomes a passing chord. So they basically function as fill ups or bridge but certainly not a part of the piece. 

Passing Chord for C to D in key C
Figure 1.1

(further illustration)

                    

        

                                                                       Figure 1.2

                                     ( chord 1 and chord 2 represent chords a progression)

    

 As shown in the above diagram, you can look  at chord 1 in the progression as the first side of the river and chord 2(destination chord) as the opposite side of the river.. The water below the bridge as the time it takes to move from chord 1 to chord 2 and our passing chord as the bridge that takes us across the river/water(time) to the other side. So this confirms how a passing chord simply functions as a bridge to take us across to the next chord.. although the space will always eventually disappears when the timing is complete 😄 but if you’re interested in improving how you sound just like I did, then you want to find a bridge rather than just allowing the time go by.

  A passing chord, as described above can be any chord(all chords in music are potential bridge chords) it all depends on whether or not they fit in there.

                  CHOOSING THE RIGHT PASSING CHORD

So you are probably thinking , yeah we have seen what passing chords are but how am I going to know which chords to use?..Well There are a couple of factors we need to consider in order to figure out the best chord combinations to use as bridge chords.. Here are  some important factors to consider before choosing a passing chord :-

     >>Timing/Tempo

We can look at timing as how much time or beat/bar it takes to get from one point to another in a musical piece or progression. While a tempo simply describes how fast to you need to get from one point to the other in a musical  progression..  So it is very important to take into consideration the timing/tempo of the song before selecting your passing chord because the song structure is almost predetermined by its timing and tempo.

In summary, you need to check how much space is available to do your fill-ups, and also how fast the song’s progression moves from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’  then you can now select the right passing chord that would fit in there.  

               >> Song Melody

Basically a song melody can be described as combination of selected scale tones that are Clustered together to form the melody line of the the song. So we need to be very mindful of the melody of the song while selecting passing chords especially if we are trying to do a harmonization or performing the song alone like a ‘Piano Solo, In such situations we’d consider selecting bridge chords which our selected melody notes can fit in with the scale tone as highest note on top of the chord.

Chord 1+melody =>Passing chord(with melody)=> Chord 2

   >>  Destination Chord

 As illustrated in the diagram(figure 1.2) you need to consider where you are going to determine which bridge to take.. just as you don’t board a plane to Texas when you want to reach Ontario. So we need to select the sets of chords are that theoretically related to the destination chord...that is, chords with natural qualities in relation to the destination chord to enable a  smooth and non-distorted movement to our destination chord. For example In the key of C..if I'm on C major(1 or 'doh') and I want to move to F major (4 or 'fa') chord, I might decide to play a 2|5|1 progression in the key of F..why F? Because it's my destination chord. In conclusion, we always need to Prioritize our destination chord while trying to select a bridge chord to get to it. 

we are just getting started with this series on passing chord s so continue with me on this journey to your musical advancement(the easy way😉). on subsequent articles we would be diving deeper into more passing chord concepts, Types, Application and lots more. if you have any question on this article feel free to ask in the comment section and also, if you have any suggestion on any topic you would like us to cover also feel free to put up a comment.