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Tritone Substitutions
- NickC25 2y agoneat! Always love to see music theory content here. Nice find!
- 082349872349872 2y agoDoes Joanie Baez have a blog? Now I'm curious to see if she's ever written (sung?) anything about the symmetries of the icosahedron...
- vinnyvichy 2y agoTo answer for the other JCB, no, because (my inference) she in her own words was abused by her mathematician (mathematical physicist?) father Albert Baez.
- 082349872349872 2y agoYikes! Every now and then I have to figure PKD was really talking about earth[0] in Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964)[1]. [0] thank you RWR (1981) [1] (wrt AG) note that Alphane saints tend to come from the Heebs
- vinnyvichy 2y ago>[1] not sure why you had to prefix.. :) Thanks for the PKD tip!! (EDIT: this is the only dried bark PKD in my possession, which suggests that while PKD admired the schizos he might have selfdiagnosed as OCD?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_a_Crap_Artist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_a_Crap_Artist)
- 082349872349872 2y agoIn switzerland, one has to take a course (with official binder but no longer homework) and pass practical and theoretical (written and oral) tests in order to call themselves a horseman. I used to say "in the Old Country, all you have to do is fall off 7 times", but the older I get the more I suspect an unreasonably effective way to filter for horsemen is to ask if they have a favourite wheelbarrow. On that note, among my favourite anekdoty, "nasha" Natasha Ilyinichna is at a dance. (the following should be shaggy-dog extended when told, but I'll spare you all) First she dances with Andrei Nikolayevich, but when she notices a fleck on his shirt cuff he apologises profusely and begs pardon to leave so he can change. Then she dances with Pierre Kirillovich, but when she notices a crumb on his cheek he apologises profusely and begs pardon to leave so he can wash up. Then she starts dancing with a Hussar, Rzhevsky, but when she notices a large splotch of mud on his boot... — Oh baby, don't you worry your pretty little head. That's not mud, it's shit, so when it dries up it'll fall off all by itself.
- vinnyvichy 2y agoOh aha, good to see the subtle pointouts are back! (This mode of convo can be helpful for local ( intrapartitional) terraforming) This one had me in stitches! Dropping the innuendos a bit, I'm truly sorry for the hamfisted way I go about doing it (what with the shit on my uniform from transporting manure) All I can say for now is, I see why you'd think it's impt that I rewrite that bit of firmware (and that three-way with mrmann was a precious moment in time --- but it could still be a moment that can rewrite firmwares in the future..) L:https://littlebritain.fandom.com/wiki/Mr_Mann https://littlebritain.fandom.com/wiki/Mr_Mann (How do 2 firmwares overcome a race condition (e.g.))
- vinnyvichy 2y agoThank you for the service!! surfacing CuriousIndian & the Norwegian pm. could have missed them with my current protocols!!
- beefman 2y agoThe earliest tritone substitution I know of appears in Scarlatti K420 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf3_NfuvK8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf3_NfuvK8Y There are two tritones in 7-limit just intonation (7/5 and 10/7) and therefore two possible tritone substitutions. Here they're played successively http://lumma.org/music/theory/demo/progs/TritoneProgressions.mp3 http://lumma.org/music/theory/demo/progs/TritoneProgressions...
- pclmulqdq 2y agoI didn't hear that spot as a tritone substitution, personally, but a sort of non-harmonic counterpoint move ("passing tones" or "setup tones" to 19th century theorists). More broadly, a lot of people like to point out wild 20th century chords in baroque music, but they really didn't think in terms of chords, and as such these pseudo-chords don't have the same function that modern versions of chords do. In particular, Scarlatti was a prolific user of the partimento method of composition, which is a slightly of abstracted version of counterpoint, and his sonatas are pretty good examples of pieces written with this in mind. The method revolves around intervals and movement between voices rather than chords. It's normal for someone thinking in counterpoint to produce some very "modern" "chords" because that's a common consequence of following nothing but voice leading to produce a piece of music. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partimento https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partimento See also Rick Beato mis-analyzing Bach's counterpoint as containing a very "modern" maj7#5 chord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1f_tzBx6ko&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1f_tzBx6ko&t=1s
- briffid 2y agoBut JS Bach apparently did love those modern sounds, see BWV 542/I But indeed it doesn't make much sense to apply jazz theory on classical or early music.
- AlbertCory 2y agoI've never quite understood that POV, although my piano teacher had it. Clearly she had another way of understanding it which I'm sure is more useful. I lack that training. Pick an example everyone knows: Bach's Prelude in C. I wrote in chord symbols over every bar of that, except for that one very weird bar near the end. It helped me a lot in memorizing it.
- zarzavat 2y ago> A tritone is very dissonant I’m sure he didn’t mean it literally, but to be pedantic a tritone is only moderately dissonant. A minor second is very dissonant.
- coldtea 2y agoIn some musical cultures it's also totally acceptable and featured all the time, without being considered dissonant.
- megmogandog 2y agoYes, this understanding would mean the 12-bar blues and blues music in general are an extremely dissonant form as they use the dominant seven chords as tonics. How many people consider the blues dissonant? It reminds me of my first counterpoint assignment. "Fourths aren't dissonant" I said, and it came back covered in red marks
- jmkr 2y agoI assume most people would find a dominant dissonant. A V7 is difficult to figure out. A V9 sounds better. To say blues doesnt sound dissonant sounds more like only adding the relative minor b5. Or British blues rock.
- coldtea 2y agoV7 are bog standard in blues and rock, and nowhere near hard to figure out or sounding dissonant. And other cultures like tritones just fine, featuring them even more prominently. There's no inherent "tritones are dissonant" human universal, it's a common practice harmony prejudice.
- zarzavat 2y ago7 chords are dissonant. That’s why a (ii-)V7-I works. Dominant creates tension that gets resolved, or not. But the chord function is only one third of the picture. Dominant chords can have greater or lesser tension depending on which extensions are used. A closed voicing will sound more dissonant than an open one.
- coldtea 2y ago>But never mind. What if we take my picture and rotate it 180 degrees? Then we get a new chord! This trick is called a tritone substitution. I know tritone subtitution from music theory, and trying to grok this explanation. What does the "roation by 180 degrees" represent in this case?
- ksenzee 2y agoHe means turn the circle of fifths 180 degrees. In other words, move the chord up a tritone (six half-steps).
- dcassett 2y agoThe drawing looks like a circle of half steps, not a circle of fifths. It seems that the article would be clearer if the 180 degree rotation were to put F# at the top of the drawing.
- ksenzee 2y agoYes, good observation. Why would that help, though? No matter what's at the top, you're turning the whole thing halfway around.
- decasia 2y agoI asked some classical music people once if there was a history of harmony. Someone retorted that the modern concept of harmony was an inadequate way of understanding counterpoint, and that the primary concept should be voice leading, not vertical harmony. I suppose it makes sense — that our categories of musical analysis have histories, and it can be misleading to apply them out of context (as the rest of this thread is commenting). But I still wish someone would write a history about "what kinds of harmonies do people think sound good/melodious/interesting, and which do they consider bad/ugly/weird/useless at a given moment." Or if that history already exists, I wish I knew how to find it.
- wrs 2y agoLeonard Bernstein‘s Harvard lectures have some of this. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuQqHfLobLUIzDiIGrtE41KvQ-EKBXlol&si=GjOLZsWwnyCGudOd https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuQqHfLobLUIzDiIGrtE41KvQ...
- spacechild1 2y ago"Harmonielehre" by Dieter de la Motte is an excellent book that does exactly this. He explicitely points out that harmony must always be understood and analyzed in context. "Kontrapunkt", his book on counterpoint, follows the same principle and is just as good. I think/hope there are English translations.
- ofalkaed 2y agoA great deal has been written on this but the vast bulk requires a solid understanding of theory, Cambridge's History of Western Music Theory gives a lifetimes worth of material to study on this topic.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoYou also need to locate such a project in place as well. There isn't just one music history, each culture has its own. They've only begun to somewhat converge in the last couple centuries, but there are at least dozens of distinct, independent musical traditions with at least a thousand years of continuous development.
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- dr_dshiv 2y agoMusic used to be treated like a science… the pythagoreans, for instance, conducted the first hypothesis driven scientific experiment on a musical question (whether whole number ratios affected chords with bronze chimes). Descartes’ first book was all about music theory.
- ofalkaed 2y agoUp until fairly recently the only people who treated music like a science were people who did not have much if anything to do with music beyond listening and thinking about it. When composers and musicians started treating music like a science (or math) people tended to complain about it and "reduce" it to academic wankery. Pythagoras and Descartes had more to do with criticism and theory than anything anyone was listening to or composing, which was instrumental in the development of western theory. I don't think we have any music following the ideas of the Pythagoreans until the mid/late 20th century, anyone know of earlier examples?
- pclmulqdq 2y agoThere is pretty strong evidence that Bach, for example, was also very much into math and thought about music in a very mathematical way. Some other composers definitely did the same, but I agree with you that mathematical thinking was never a prerequisite for composers. I would suspect that many of the ones from the early periods were far more "mathematical" than 20th and 21st century composers, but there is very little writing either way.
- ofalkaed 2y agoI don't think many early composers get as mathematical as someone like Xenakis or even Schoenberg. Or maybe its just the way in which the math manifests in composition, Xenakis was far more direct with it than Bach. I can't see how one could make a viable case for pre 20th century composers being more mathematical but the argument could be interesting and worthwhile.
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- neonscribe 2y agoIt's a shame to describe the tritone sub for G7 as C# F G# B, when the proper way to spell it is either Db F Ab Cb or C# E# G# B. Of course, then you'd have to explain about enharmonic equivalence and how chords are usually spelled with every other note.
- kazinator 2y agoThe C# grates on my eyes, since the V7 tritone substitute is IIb7. However, preserving the F and the B notation emphasizes the tritone interval that is inverted and shared with the substitute.
- autarch 2y agoI came here to pick this nit but you beat me to it. I think calling it Db7 is the best way to think of it, especially since in jazz it's often part of a descending sequence of II-V-I, where the tritone substitution turns it into II-bII-I. So in C major (where G is the dominant), it has to be Db.
- mkbosmans 2y agoWhy do you say a tritone substitution turns it in a II-bII-I? Can it be as easily said to be II-#I-I? In that case it would be C#.
- colanderman 2y agoEnharmonic equivalents are usually chosen to match the direction of movement. So a descending passage will prefer to use flats.
- brudgers 2y agoThe root is the root. There can be only I.
- autarch 2y agoI don't think this is correct. I think colanderman's answer is the right one, which is that when we're descending, we generally spell out the pitches with flats. If this were ascending, then we could have I-#I-II. But as I noted, in jazz this particular descending pattern is fairly common.
- pizza 2y agoQuestion for music theory experts who are also coders: does it feel like understanding a programming language, or something else? Admittedly I've never really made any serious independent effort to learn it, or to retain whatever I tried to learn, but it is very difficult for me to even grasp a mental model of how understanding it is supposed to work, or feel, in my head. I can read a piece of code and know how the bits affect one another. When I read basically anything on music theory it feels like a string of non-sequiturs basically. Maybe there's just some skill floor where that all starts to feel organized?
- dools 2y agoA bit. Music is a bit like programming but I think there are 2 distinct ways to practise music: performance and composition. Theory helps you with both. I think that there's less of a "performance" aspect to programming, it's more "composition-like". Chess is an area where you have a combination of theory and skill that, to me, is more music-like (because you can play chess in a "performance way" and also in a "composition way"). If your goal is to be able to improvise then the purpose of theory is really ear training: it allows you to develop an instinct about what to do with your body to produce a desired result. Improvisation is a bit like "composition in the moment", like speed chess. There are contrived situations where people treat programming as a performance activity but it's not the way most programmers spend their time.
- epiccoleman 2y agoThis was my favorite reply to the question. Music theory is great, and it really can be helpful with composition. But I've also found that what I'm really looking for when trying to improvise, or perform, is having studied and worked on the theory - specifically on the ear training and the process of connecting that to my fingers - to the point where I don't have to think about it any more. The composition vs performance framing is very useful I think. Some musicians might just want to do composition, and can spend a little more time between the notes figuring out what ought to come next. (Although even in this case, it's easy to get bogged down in analysis and forget about what feels right). But a lot of musicians want to be able to improvise - and the difference is like being able to write down a compelling argument vs being able to make a compelling "speech" off the cuff. Yeah, in both cases, you're going to need a good understanding of grammar and vocabulary - but when you're trying to make that speech (or improvise a solo), you're just not going to have the time to think about "the sound I want to hear next is the sound of the 5th of the chord the band is implying." All our practice and theory homework is in service of the fingers just doing what's in our heads automatically - and sometimes, even surprising ourselves with what comes out.
- dhosek 2y agoOne of the things I think is cool is that a standard chord sequence in Jazz is the ii7-V7-IM7 (e.g., Dm7-G7-CM7) which, if you do the tritone substitution turns into ii7-II♭7-IM7 so you get this nice little chromatic descending sequence happening in the bassline. It’s also worth noting that when comping, the most important notes to be sure to hit are the 3rd (which expresses whether we’re major or minor) and the 7th (which gives the flavor of the chord), since the root is likely covered by the bass player and the fifth is implied by the 3rd (if you’re at a piano, try you can see this by, e.g., playing C-E-G-B in the right hand and C in the left, and comparing that to E-B in the right hand and C in the left. A jazz pianist soloing will likely do their melody line in the right hand and hit 3-7 with the left), so the tritone substitution will be made/implied by whatever the bass player does against that. The other fun thing is to just vamp on a II♭7-V7 sequence. Some notable places you’ll encounter this in music you’ve heard include the Simpsons theme and the Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus.”
- zefhous 2y agoLike Sting said, “it's not a chord until the bass player decides what the root is.”
- recursive 2y agoThere's even a name for the 3rd and 7th. Collectively, they're known as the "guide tones".
- brudgers 2y agoyou get this nice little chromatic descending sequence happening in the bassline If and only if the chords all stay in the same inversion and the bass line doesn't make leaps. That might be what you want and it is idiomatic in some genres/styles. But it might not be what you want or even what you get from the notation depending on how the musicians interpret the notation.
- RockofStrength 2y agoAnother lens is ii7-II♭7-IM7 = ii7-V7♭5♭9-IM7, viewing the II♭7 as an altered V7. This would retain the same 3-7 (just flips them).
- ilayn 2y ago"Music theorists tend to bombard their audience with more information than nonexperts can swallow in one sitting." groaned the mathematician, in cognitive dissonance.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Obscurity4340 2y agoI wish music theorists were more like mathematicians :(
- sublinear 2y agoI don't think there's usually so much information in music. It's more like a language problem. Depending on context, it can take a whole paragraph of music theory to describe a handful of chords that would otherwise be instantly recognizable to a trained ear.
- odyssey7 2y ago“A tritone is very dissonant, so the dominant seventh chord really wants to ‘resolve’ to something more sweet.” “I see you shiver with antici——” It’s not dissonance that makes you want to hear the completion of the sentence, rather, it’s grammar. If you play a tritone out of context, there is no need for it to resolve, but you can cast context around it by adding a resolution to a tonic just after. The tritone has a culturally-learned grammatical role in western music; and that role is not a universal law of aesthetics. “——pation.”
- anon291 2y agoInteresting. John Baez is the brother of Joan Baez, the famous singer. Didn't know he was into music too. That being said, Tritone substitutions sound good in some circumstances, but seem over the top in others. Use with care, as always. They'll always seem more appropriate in jazz genres
- taejo 2y agoAccording to Wikipedia they are first cousins, not siblings
- bonzini 2y agoToxic by Britney Spears is basically built on secondary dominants and tritone substitutions (i-VI7-II7-V7 becomes i-IIIb7-II7-IIb7), so they definitely have their place in pop music too. Whether the composers thought about it that way, we can't know, but in any case what matters is whether the bass line sounds good.
- SoftTalker 2y agoDoes one normally learn any theory as part of learning to play an instrument? I played in middle and high school concert band and took private lessons in addition to that for a few of those years. I never learned a lick of theory from any of my instructors. Maybe because as a horn player you can't play chords. All I learned was to read notes and play my part. After a year of high school band I came to the conclusion that this was just work and gave me no enjoyment at all so I quit. Everyone seemed surprised.
- Nifty3929 2y agoYes, and yes. The reason you weren't taught much theory is because on a horn you're only playing one note. But I think that's really a shame, because you were deprived of the understand of what you were playing and why, in the context of the notes and chords that the rest of the band was playing. And even when playing a horn solo piece, there is always an understandable, chord-based structure to the piece. Edit: Also it really doesn't take much effort or theory to understand most of what would be interesting. Like many subjects, the 80% of what's helpful can be written on just a few pages and learned in a few hours - but whole college curriculums can be made of the details and nuances. Go read up on 7th chords, cadences, and simple chord progressions if interested.
- ghostpepper 2y agoThis is an oversimplification imho. Many of the greatest jazz musicians like Miles Davis and John Coltrane played instruments that could only play one note at a time, and they still manage to convey harmonic concepts. I don’t have an answer for why most music teachers don’t teach theory (and improv) other than it’s more challenging and they might not know it themselves, and it’s easier to teach rote memorization. There are plenty of people who learn piano (which obviously doesn’t suffer from the single-note “limitation”) and also learn almost no theory.
- brudgers 2y agoIn the US, theory is typically part of post-secondary musical education. Some high schools might have it, but in a lot of high schools filling out the marching and symphonic bands with warm bodies will drive a lot of a music program. Typically, piano is part of post-secondary music program requirements and keyboards make it practical to apply music theory to make sounds...arpeggiation will get your ear so far. Polyphony gives a much clearer picture of what music theory is describing. If you're interested in learning music theory, a polyphonic keyboard that makes sounds without a computer (maybe one with speakers, but at least with a headphone jack) is my recommendation. Maybe it's better if it is small and portable. A MIDI controller with a phone or tablet might be ok, but phones and tablets have email and the internet and those can interrupt what you set out to do. Anyway, theory usually comes later in the US system. There are exceptions of course.
- viccis 2y agoInteresting article, but FYI, I'm not sure if it's because of my mild color blindness, but making out some of the colors on those first couple pictures is next to impossible.