Chord Substitutions 5th Chord.

[James Quillian]

What are the best 5th chord substitutions to use with a 6 string lap steel tuned in C6?

The main purpose in this is to take the 6th chord flavor out of the 5th chord when the song calls for a hard 7th like at the end of a turn around in a 12 chord blues pattern.

[Phillip Hermans]

Lets say we are the key of F, so that our 5 chord is C.

C7:
- You can grab a C6 chord and do a behind-the-bar pull on you "A" string up a half-step to turn you C6 into a C7.
- You can also go two frets down form your C6 position and grab you "A" and "C" strings to get a Bb and G, the 7th and 5th of the C7 chord.

C9:
Play a Gm chord on your C to get a C9 sound. Simply go two frets below your C6 "home base" fret (i.e. 12th fret) and place the "A", "C", and "E" strings to get: G, Bb, D the 5th, 7th and 9th... this is fun because you can chromatically walk up and down between the "home" C6 position and 2 frets down.

Here is Eddie Rivers demonstrating this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rARCcW3I0K4&t=4s

Now depending on the song and context, you could do a lot of variations with the "dominant" chord...

For starters lets say
C7b9: C E G Bb Db
embedded in this chord is a fully diminished chord, so if you grab you "E" and "G" strings, you can slide those up and down 3 frets forever and you will always be playing notes in your diminished chord (and therefore in your C7b9 chord)

Another: C7#9
3 frets up from C6 gives you Eb6: Eb G Bb C or the #9, 5, m7 and Root of the C7#9 chord

Eddie Rivers also shows this in one of the Western Swing Rules videos...

If you are comfortable with those behind-the-bar bends, you can bend your #9 up a half-step to turn it into a Major 3rd. This is a very bluesy/country sound and is quite effective!

so in summary, to sound "slick" you can go two frets down from home position, or 3 frets up, and get lots of "dominant" chord sounds...

[James Quillian]

Thanks

You just gave me the incentive I need to learn how to do back of bar bends.

Lets say we are the key of F, so that our 5 chord is C.

C7:
- You can grab a C6 chord and do a behind-the-bar pull on you "A" string up a half-step to turn you C6 into a C7.
- You can also go two frets down form your C6 position and grab you "A" and "C" strings to get a Bb and G, the 7th and 5th of the C7 chord.

C9:
Play a Gm chord on your C to get a C9 sound. Simply go two frets below your C6 "home base" fret (i.e. 12th fret) and place the "A", "C", and "E" strings to get: G, Bb, D the 5th, 7th and 9th... this is fun because you can chromatically walk up and down between the "home" C6 position and 2 frets down.

Here is Eddie Rivers demonstrating this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rARCcW3I0K4&t=4s

Now depending on the song and context, you could do a lot of variations with the "dominant" chord...

For starters lets say
C7b9: C E G Bb Db
embedded in this chord is a fully diminished chord, so if you grab you "E" and "G" strings, you can slide those up and down 3 frets forever and you will always be playing notes in your diminished chord (and therefore in your C7b9 chord)

Another: C7#9
3 frets up from C6 gives you Eb6: Eb G Bb C or the #9, 5, m7 and Root of the C7#9 chord

Eddie Rivers also shows this in one of the Western Swing Rules videos...

If you are comfortable with those behind-the-bar bends, you can bend your #9 up a half-step to turn it into a Major 3rd. This is a very bluesy/country sound and is quite effective!

so in summary, to sound "slick" you can go two frets down from home position, or 3 frets up, and get lots of "dominant" chord sounds...

[Fred]

You can play a 9th chord by anchoring the back of the bar on the 5th string and slanting the front up two frets on the 2nd string. Play the strings 5, 3 and 2. That gives you the 3rd, b7th and 9th tones.

The third string might be a bit out but with a little vibrato or moving in and out of it quickly it's not noticeable.

You can also just play the slant on strings 5 and 3. The 3rd and b7th are the defining sound of the dominant chord.

[Joe Burke]

Lots of 7th (dominant) chords by using slants (forward) and reverse) and split slants!

Remember, slants are fun!

[Robert Murphy]

You can find a C7 or any 7th by moving up 3 frets and play strings 3-4-5. In this case at the E flat position the notes would be C, B flat and G. Root flat 7!and fifth.

[David DeLoach]

In C6 tuning (C-E-G-A-C-E low to high) if you are in the key of F, consider this for C7...

On the C and E strings you can move between these frets for the altered C dominant 5th chord:

x-x-x-x-0-0 (C and E, the root and 3rd)

x-x-x-x-2-2 (D and Gb, the 9th and flatted 5th)

x-x-x-x-4-4 (E and G#, the 3rd and sharped 5th)

x-x-x-x-6-6 (Gb and Bb, the flatted 5th and dominant 7th)

x-x-x-x-8-8 (G# and C, the sharped 5th and root)

x-x-x-x-10-10 (Bb and D, the dominant 7th and 9th)

x-x-x-x-12-12 ((C and E, the root and 3rd)

etc...

Obviously, you can incorporate the 6th & 5th strings (C & E strings) as well using the same frets.

Try using double stops moving between these frets or single note lines using these frets over the 5th chord.

[J D Sauser]

Yes, a chord functioning as a V, cannot have a 6th or M7th degree.

Depends on if you mean playing all notes at once (as a "chord") or alluding to a substitute or altered chord functioning as a V7.
C6th, unless there are inside-out strings added (like JB adding C# at the bottom and creating an A7th#9th (P8 decades later), has no Tritone interval and thus no straight Dominant chord.
One could add a bottom D note and use that low note with C's Major triad above to make a beautiful IV-over-V (IV/V) D7th chord (open) which beautifully alludes a "V"-chord even without the presence of a TriTone interval.
Maurice Anderson carried that "D" (9th in the bass) from both his PSG setups to his later years S12 non-pedal SuperSLIDE C6th, which still had no TriTones.

However, C6th is extraordinarily well laid out for playing diminished in string pairs, which weaves across the strings in pairs every 2nd string with just one-fret movements.
You add the thinking of "whole-half" or "half-whole"-scale to it and discover how Barry Harris taught it as two diminished arpeggios a half, respectively a whole step apart from each other (since both repeat every minor third (3 frets)) and you got a pretty much all the altered notes laid out very controlable under your fingers. Again, that's not playing "Chords" (which ought to have at least 3 notes at once to qualify as "a chord") but a string of harmonies (2 notes) which create the impression of chords.
But as I said, there is no clear dominant chord on a pure 4-note C6th unless we slant bars.
Now, once you DO, slant bars, as Dominant chords are of the family of diminished (every minor third symmetry), Dominant chords to repeat every 3 frets in different inversions alterations. So, 3 frets above the "nominal" Dominant, we'd find the "BackDoor Dominant" and another 3 frets higher (which sums 3 whole tones over the "nominal" position) the TriTone Substistution.
It's all there! All the elusiveness of the Greats', "hidden in plain sight".

You can allude to an Altered V7 which really fits well between a ii-b5 (aka. half-dim) and it's target i- (minor ii-V-i) by playing first a minor triad starting on the #I (correctly called b9th) of the V-chord, which will play the V's degrees b9, #5, b7. If you have a tuning with an A below your low C... that would be the root note to start that minor triad on... if then you can move down 1 fret the next 3 strings up will also add the #9th on top... it's a gorgeous waterfall of notes leading right into a IMaj or as elegantly into a i-minor (which is much more difficult to achieve).
So, a good place to start is to look a half step beyond the root of the V-chord because it's the gateway to the diminished over the V (call it the 7b9th) and altered notes of the V.


... J-D.

[David DeLoach]

Here is another idea.

For a C7 chord, first play a C6 here...

12-12-x-12-x-x. (C, E, A)

then slide down 2 frets to a Bb6...

10-10-x-10-x-x (Bb, D, G) which gives you the b7, 9th, and 5th of the C7 chord.

Or you can walk it down a fret at a time...

12-12-x-12-x-x
11-11-x-11-x-x
10-10-x-10-x-x

or use the higher treble strings...

x-x-x-12-12-12
x-x-x-11-11-11
x-x-x-10-10-10

or...

x-12-x-12-12-x
x-11-x-11-11-x
x-10-x-10-10-x

or to resolve from the V7 to the I chord

x-x-x-12-12-12 <---C7
x-x-x-11-11-11
x-x-x-10-10-10
x-12-x-12-12-x
x-11-x-11-11-x
x-10-x-10-10-x
12-12-x-12-x-x
x--5--5-x--5-x <---F

[Tim Toberer]

This video explains the Barry Harris family of dominants idea in an approachable way, with no talking and a few sentences. Most importantly you can hear what this sounds like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ_K3uktov8

Trying to explain this stuff usually makes it sound much more complicated than it is. The basic idea is pretty simple, but you can make its as complicated as you want considering you can also add extensions to these chords. Finding resolutions is the real art of this technique. Note that the Tritone substitution is included in this idea. Using this on an instrument tuned to a 6th tuning is the real challenge, but I think this idea is still useful.