Jazz Chords: Every Type of Passing Chord You Need To Know
Adding passing chords is one of the best ways to make your comping and chord progressions more interesting, and you can explore a lot of great sounds like this without drowning in complicated theory!
It is important to make your chords flow. That connection and forward motion are what makes them sound great when you play. It’s like telling a story with chords: You keep people listening because they are curious about what might happen next, and the first type of passing chord does exactly that!
#1 Diminished Passing Chords
The diminished chord is incredibly unstable, which makes the perfect passing chord: It always wants to move on to a resolution. Let’s say you have a progression like this:
Here, the chords stand still in the 2nd half of the 1st bar, and you can add a diminished chord a half step under the Dm7 to move it forward:
This type of diminished chord is a dominant diminished. It is a diminished chord that works as a dominant for the next chord.
In this case, the C#dim works like an A7, resolving to Dm7.
The easiest way to think about these is that they resolve by moving up a half step to the next chord. Here, that is C# to D,
and a huge part of why it works is that you get that chromatic bass line: C C# D.
That is mostly how you want to use them.
Using diminished chords to create chromatic basslines is a very nice way to have a flowing chord progression. Here’s another example with a III VI II V I. That can be uses as a great intro:
With these first examples, the passing chord becomes a part of the chord progression, and everybody in the band would have to play it. As you will see in later examples, that is not something you have to do or even want to do all the time. There is also another type of diminished chord, but I will cover that later in the video.
#2 Getting Chromatic
Chromatic passing chords are amazing for embellishing the progression while comping, but they are not important enough to become a real part of the chord progression.
Let’s say you have to comp a basic turnaround like this:
Adding chromatic passing or approach chords to this is easy and makes things move forward. You only need to slide your hand up or down a fret most of the time. Check out how this sounds, and especially the last one, which is a bit different:
You start on Cmaj7, then add a G#7 passing chord to move up to A7.
I really just think about the chord I want to go to and play the same thing, a fret higher or lower. It doesn’t really matter what the passing chord is which makes it pretty easy. From there, You go to Dm7; here, you can add Ab7 to move down to G7.
G#7 and Ab7 are the same chord, but in this example, one resolves up and the other down, which is why I named them differently.
The interesting one is the chromatic passing chord that resolves to Cmaj7. Here, I am using a Db6, which then has the melody move up and the chord moves down.
Exploring voice-leading like this can give you some great transitions like the next one.
You also want to keep in mind that you don’t have to make the chromatic passing chords resolve to the next chord. They can also go back to the chord they came from like this F#7, which also resolves up while the melody moves down:
Chromatic passing chords are great for harmonizing Bebop melodies and can be fun to mess around with. Let’s look at what is pretty much the opposite of Chromatic passing chords!
#3 Diatonic – The Walk
Diatonic passing chords are very far from their chromatic cousin, but they also sound great! Let’s start with an embellished turnaround, and then I’ll break down what is going on:
This example is just a version of this very basic turnaround with a LOT of extra chords:
The point here is to create a step-wise bass line, but now, it is not chromatic. It is diatonic.
The first passing chord is a triad inversion: G over B, which steps us down to the Am7. I turned the II V in bar 2 into a progression walking up the scale from Dm7 to G7, and I chose to voice it so that the melody and the chords move independently, but that is just an extra trick.
The most common way to use diatonic passing chords is to add them as a step-wise progression, and another way you can do that on this turnaround is like this. Here it almost has a gospel-like sound:
When you add diatonic passing chords like this, they are also usually not made a part of the chord progression but are considered optional embellishments. Most of the time, they will also work if the bass player is playing the original chords.
The next passing chord is great for moving things forward, similar to the diminished and the chromatic passing chords
#4 Dominant Passing Chords
The strongest resolution in harmony is a dominant resolving to a tonic chord:
That, of course, means that you can use those as passing chords as well. In many ways, that is the underlying principle in Barry Harris’s sixth diminished scale, where you have a scale built around a tonic chord and a dominant diminished chord.
In this case, you want to add secondary dominants to pull towards the different chords in the progression, and you have two variations of the dominant passing chords you can use. The regular V-I:
Variation #1
And the tritone substitute, which resolves a half-step down:
Variation #2
Applying the tritone substitutions to a turnaround sounds fantastic like this:
Of course, you don’t have to add passing chords everywhere, but here, they sound great and they help get the groove across.
These are all tritone substitutions: Bb7 to A7, Ab7 to G7, and Db7 to Cmaj7.
You can, of course, also use the secondary dominants that are not tritone substitutions, and they also sound great:
Here, you have the E7 going to A7 and a D7 moving to G7. The Db7 is still a tritone substitute, of course.
A variation of this that also sounds great is to have a passing chord that resolves back to where it came from, like this example does with the A7, but this works better when you have more space per chord:
There are also passing chords that hide inside the chord they resolve to! Something that is also connected to Barry Harris’s sixth diminished system.
#5 Suspension Passing Chords
A passing chord that isn’t a different chord. What does that mean? It is not as mysterious as you might think. Check out this example, and especially what is going on when it goes to C:
The bass moves to C as you would expect, but before resolving to Cmaj7, you get a suspension using an IVm chord, in this case, an Fm6/9, which then beautifully resolves to Cmaj7.
The passing chord in this example is a minor subdominant, but you also have the non-dominant diminished option I discussed, and you can use a dominant as well. That would give you this, which is pretty dissonant but then has a very satisfying resolution:
Having a dominant with the tonic in the bass creates a nasty amount of tension. (Play), but that makes the resolution even more satisfying.
When Barry Harris talks about borrowing notes from the diminished chord, this is what he means by that, and you can get some pretty out-there sounds like this C6 with two borrowed notes. Notice how chord symbols don’t make sense here, which is a bit funny:
But another diminished chord is even more beautiful: The #IV diminished, which I also often refer to as the subdominant diminished. Check out how this sounds:
Here, the G7 goes to the F#diminished, which beautifully resolves to the Cmaj7.
It is an underrated sound, and you can find it in quite a few standard melodies. Especially when there is a maj7 in the melody
The 3 Rules For Playing Jazz Chords
But knowing all these different chords is one thing. Turning them into music and using them for your own comping or chord melody is another; to get that right, you need to focus on the right skills and the 3 rules of playing Jazz chords, which I go over in this video so that you can level up your chord skills and comping. Check it out!
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