Reharmonization is Chord Substitution but for an entire chord progression rather than a single chord. It is used to:
- Make a song more harmonically complex (i.e. more jazzy); and
- Personalise a song.
When given a lead sheet, Jazz musicians will rarely play exactly what is written. Jazz, after all, is all about novelty, improvisation and personal expression. A Jazz musician will generally take the written-out chords as a base from which to build a more interesting progression.
Reharmonization is a large and complex topic. But there are nevertheless rules, techniques and ideas which you can employ to create a smooth and jazzy sounding reharmonization of an existing song. In this module, I will be covering these rules and discuss some other reharmonization ideas and technique you can employ to make a song sound 'jazzy'. In the next module we will move on to Modern Jazz Theory.
