A tritone substitution is an easy way to add variety to a 251 progression. Erroll garner erroll garnerstyle tritone chordsubstitution midi file. Tritone substitutions replace dominant chords with another dominant chord a tritone away. So lets jump right into some different kinds of tritone substitutions. This is by far the most common tritone substitution. The name refers to the fact that the substituted chord is a tritone away. Tritone substitution tutorial what is tritone substitution. Tritone substitution iiv substitution free theory pdf printable. A tritone is an interval of 3 whole steps or 6 half steps on the piano. Tritone substitution is a reharmonisation technique that can be used to add harmonic interest and variety to a. A variation of the tritone substitution is also to use it as a secondary dominant. Using the concept of tritone substitution, we can make cyclical progressions move in half steps ddbc instead of in fifths dgc and still have the same result. In blues and jazz turnarounds, its common practice to use harmonic substitutions for any of the chords. Mark watkins received his degrees from brigham young university and indiana university and has studied with eugene rousseau, daniel deffayet, ray smith, and yushi ishiwata and jazz with david baker.
These chords are interchangeable because the tritone interval pitches are identical in each. The tritone substitution is a dominant, or secondary dominant 7th chord whose root is a tritone 3 whole steps away from the original chord. G7 and db7 share the same tritone interval which gives both chords their dominant quality and makes these two chords interchangeable. Understanding tritone substitutions by john mark piper. This doesnt mean you cant substitute other chord qualities, but a dominant 7 is most often the chord being used to replace. Dm7 g7 cmaj7 can have the g7 chord replaced to a db7, so the progression would become. Years ago you could get banned from the church for even playing a tritone due to its very harsh or dissonant sound. Iiv substitution replacing a dominant 7th v7 chord with a. In practice, a tritone sub in jazz is most commonly a dominant 7 chord. The tritone substitution for the 5 chord g7 would be db7. One of the most common chord substitutions in jazz is the tritone substitution.
Its called a tritone substitution because the root of db7 is an augmented 4th nicknamed a tritone away from g7. Erroll garner erroll garnerstyle tritone chordsubstitution midi file for piano riff lesson midi. Tritone substitution the tritone, and the v chord that it is part of, are very unstable and want very much to resolve, as in figure 66. Many blues elements, such as the callandresponse format and the use of. In the key of c, a 251 progression contains the chords. You can get the pdf and the guitarpro files for these examples through my. How to use a tritone substitution in your progressions. Iiv substitution by cycles of hybrid chords g7 c7 7 d7 g7 c7 ab7db7gb7b7 c7 eb7ab7d7db7c7 60 iiv substitution by cycles of hybrid chords different quality d7 g7 c7 d7 g7 c7 bb7ab7d7db7c7 eb7eb7ab7co. Download theory supplements, midi files, chord changes and full notefornote transcriptions of every lesson. Tritone substitution is a popular term that gets thrown a lot in music, especially jazz music when it comes to reharmonizing the chords and harmony in jazz standards and often times big band arrangements the term tritone, refers to the interval tritone, which indicates that we will be dealing with a 4 and a half step difference as the tritone is a half step larger than a perfect fourth. The tritone substitution is a dominant, or secondary dominant 7th chord whose root is a.
In other words, tritone substitution involves replacing v 7 with. If you play a tritone ten times in a row before you go to bed tonight figure 67, you probably wont be able to fall asleepyoull have to get up, run to the piano, and resolve it to a i chord figure 68. Use of the concept of tritone substitution adds the b9 and b5 tones aka altered extensions to the basic dominant seventh chord. The tritone substitution is one of the most common chord substitutions found in jazz and was the precursor to more complex substitution patterns like coltrane. Substitutions open music theory viva open publishing. A tritone substitution is the substitution of one dominant seventh chord possibly altered or extended with another that is three whole steps a tritone from the original chord.
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