Reharmonization working sheet: Until my Dying Day

Below is a music video of a local Scottish rock band "The King Lot" performing the song "Until my Dying day".

I decided to cover a song by a band that will be relatively unknown on a global scale to show that the ruleset doesn't have to be applied to famous songs.

The song was also picked to show how the ruleset can be implemented on songs of any genre.

The chord sequence for this song is as follows:

Em - C - G -D

That's it.  The same four chords repeated over and over.

At first this was daunting.  I pushed on however and began to use some basic chord substitution and expending to make the sequence more interesting, and closer to a smooth-jazz style.  Below is the initial working taken from a document on my iPad.

Until my dying day

Em C G D

Em7 Cmaj7 Gmaj7 D7

Gmaj7 Am7 Em7 Bm7 

Cmaj7 Em7 Am7 Em9

Am7 Gmaj7 Cmaj7 Gmaj7 

ii-V-Is

Em7 - A7(6) - Dmaj7

Am7 - D7 - Gmaj7 

Bm7 - E7(6) - Amaj7 

F#halfdim - Balt - Em(maj7) 

MELODY: 

Verse 

BAG (EDB)

Ch:

BAG

CBA

v2:

EDBA

GF#EDs

Br: 

G-E

(Promise this) : G A Bb 

Here I began to substitute the chord sequence, seeing how many different versions I could get.  I then began to develop ii-V ideas, though when it came to putting these into practice, most of them didn't work.  The melody notes were jotted down at the bottom for reference.

You can see at the start of my working that I write down the original chord sequence.  Then I implement the rule that turns everything into a seventh chord.  Then I swap each chord for it's relevant minor/major.  Then I apply the rule that says I can substitute minor chords for similar minor chords within the same key.  It goes on and on.  The result us that I'm left with a handful of chords that can be put in place of any of the original chords.

The result is a very simple reharmonisation, with very few chords taken out of key.  This is an example of one of the many ways the ruleset can be applied to a chord sequence.  The original chords do not have to be edited and substituted and removed and warped and altered - they can simply be changed by chords from the same key but with different guide tones.  This makes the melody notes take on a different form - the melody in this song is based on E minor pentatonic.  The notes relation to the chords are almost always based on guide tones.  By substituting the chords for different chords within the same key, the melody notes become 9th, 11th and 13ths, as opposed to firsts, thirds and fifths.

Below is the work sheet I wrote when I put the above iPad workings into practice at the piano.  The first thing you may notice is that I've halved the time in which chords are played.  In the space of the "Em-C-G-D" heard in the original, I've instead placed Cmaj7-Bmaj 7.  I've halved the number of chords used.  This leads to a sound closer to that of smooth jazz than rock due to the spareness of the played chords.

Apart from the end of the song where the vocal melody hits a Bb (this is where an altered chord can be played to give it colour), the repetitive chord sequences can just be exchanged for one another.  So for example in verse one a player may play Am Bm Cmaj7 Gmaj7, then Bm7 Cmaj7 Em7 Am7; from then onwards the song could be reharmonised using the exact same chords as mentioned above

but in different orders.  Since the original chord sequence is based on four repeating chords, this works well and leads to a simple but effective reharmonisation.