Some musicians think that shortcuts equate to cheating that can hurt the learning process. You can easily make an argument for this. For example, instead of having a vague recognition of all 12 Major and minor chords, you should spend the time and effort to know them very well. This includes being able to identify them in any inversion. This takes repetition. It 
also takes patience.
But shortcuts and tricks don’t always equate to cheating. In fact, they can actually help you to be quite productive. Especially when it comes to chord tricks. You see, a trick or shortcut is a different way to approach a challenge. You could also say that they can help you think about something in a different way. You may not be aware of it, but all musicians use chord tricks and shortcuts. It makes the challenges of music easier and that’s not cheating. It just makes sense.
In this article, I want to share with you 3 sneaky chord tricks that will make it easier for you to build chords and voicings with minimum brain power. They're not only exciting to learn, they're also fun. So let's take a look at them.
1 Easy Major to minor 7 Trick
If you have a Major chord, you can easily turn it into a minor 7 chord just by changing one note. Let's say you have a C Major triad. Find the root note of the chord, (C) and add the note that's an interval of a minor 3rd below it (A). You now have an A minor 7 chord instantly. This works with any chord in any inversion. If you downloaded the Melody Harmonization Instructional Guide, you'll recognize this chord trick.
2 Sus 2 and 4 Trick
If you're familiar with suspended chords, you're aware that you can replace the 3rd and substitute it with the 2nd or 4th tones. But did you know that Sus2 and Sus4 chords are inversions of each other? Let's say you have a C Sus4 chord. Move the C up an octave and you can easily see that it's also an F Sus2 chord. You can transform any Sus4 and Sus2 chord this way.
3 Passing Tone Trick
Simple chords can be just what the ear needs for a clean sounding chord progression. But that doesn't mean they have to sound boring, especially when you're transitioning from one chord to another. One way to add interest to your chords is to play a passing tone in your left hand just before you land on the next chord. A very useful way to play a passing tone is to play a note that is a half step below one of the notes that are in your target chord.
For example, if you're playing a C Major chord and are about to move to F, you could change your bass note to E just before you play the F chord.
It doesn't always have to be a note in the chord your playing or the chord you're moving to. If you're playing an F Major chord and you're moving to G Major, just play an F sharp in the bass just before the G Major Chord. If you ended a musical phrase on a chord like this, you're ears would be in trouble. But the tension this tone provides the chord is just the right recipe to add some flavor.
As you can see with just the three chord tricks covered in this article that you're not limited to just one key of music, chord, inversion, etc. You have many more possibilities by expanding just these three concepts alone. Experiment and have fun discovering your own chord tricks.
Until next time, Go Play!
Greg Lee
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