Songs that use Tritone Substitution

[@luigiscazzari4724]

David is the music teacher that every school needs

[@AzinCT]

Yes, hire it for him 😂

[@junkmail5924]

I love how consistent the visual style in your videos is... a David Bennett video is instantly recognizable

[@sorviknight7117]

Billy Joel's song "Vienna" uses a kind of tritone sub at the end of the chorus, when it goes from C7 to F#7 to F7, and finally resolving to the tonic Bb

[@liro6]

Yes I love playing that on piano.

[@davidottinger3327]

Tritone sub resolutions have a lot in common with augmented 6th resolutions. I'd say the F#7 fits into that group. In Roman numerals, the passage above would be interpreted something like (assuming all dominant 7ths) V7/V - Ger+6 - V7 - I

[@derenjoy3r]

That song is fucking lovely

[@blah2blah65]

@@davidottinger3327 You are my hero for having such insight, knowing or researching a Billy Joel song, speaking in a language that shows your expertise, and sharing your thoughts in a comment.

[@kimandgumi]

Oh that's why it's called tritone substitution! I thought it was a lazy shifting in chords but now thanks to you I understand why I find those progression so satisfying. It hides cadences

[@jameschristiansson3137]

"Will he mention Britney Spears' Toxic?" You bet he will.

He did!

[@juewang1702]

This isn't a good example of tritone substitution because the chords are not dominant 7 chords (they are just triads). I think it would be better to think of this as chromatic planing.

[@notanotherjamesmurphy5574]

who wrote those chords in Toxic ?

[@suites.74]

Two of those chord subs in one chorus is truly devious and devilishly delightful

[@suites.74]

​@@notanotherjamesmurphy5574collab between Bloodshy and Avant. Whichever the bass guitar play was out of those two came up with the tritone sub.

[@HughCoxx]

Bro, you're on fire!!! You're explanations cuts through ignorance like steel! :)

[@pensivepenguin3000]

Damn son! You got bars 🔥

[@randellaustin393]

This guys posts are so perfectly timed. I was literally just wondering about how different genres can use tritone subs, and boom, he posts this. Phenomenal!

[@maria-ritasilva5136]

ME TOO

[@pensivepenguin3000]

Sweet. Can’t wait to try this out in my guitar playing. I’m in my 40s and have been playing guitar since 1995, and I think I’ve learned more in the past five years of watching KZbin videos about music than I did all those years before. I’m thrilled for kids just starting their music journeys in this climate of access to such great, free education. it will be killer to see what they do as they progress and start putting their music out into the world

[@GizzyDillespee]

"Waiter! I think this isn't diet tonic" "Sir... I poured it in front of you" "What? No, I mean the music. How's my tritone sub coming along? Remember, extra cheese!"

[@AtomizedSound]

🙄

[@blah2blah65]

Your joke is way over my head, which either means you were drunk when you wrote it, I am drunk when I read it, I know very little about music theory, or some or all of the above. But I deeply resonate with "extra cheese" and therefore applaud you sir and / or madam for the extra cheese.

[@gametalk3149]

@@blah2blah65I like cheese

[@nathanreiber6819]

Umm a tritone sub is nondiatonic...

[@PutItAway101]

I once picked up a girl called Anna Crusis outside a bar

[@Qajaqs4real]

I would like to give some examples of Led Zeppelin songs that use Tritone substitution! Obviously Since I’ve Been Loving You uses the tritone of V, I’m Gonna Crawl actually uses the EXACT same progression as Dream a Little Dream of Me just without the dominant 7ths, and an early version of In The Light actually has the “Toxic” progression played on the clavinet with an Amin(or A major, it’s not really specified) to a C6 to a B7 to a Bbmaj#11!!

[@plsaboia]

Great to see Brazilian music (Bossanova, in this case) featured in your channel! Love your videos!

[@Sannahmusic]

This is the very magic of Bossa Nova! I'll try that out within short! Thank you for the video!

[@gulux8094]

4:35 So happy to see Martina here mentioned! She is a genius😍

[@amnesomniac]

YES!! Thank you! Tritone substitution has been kind of a cloudy area for me ever since I heard of it. 🙏

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Happy to help!

[@TheStickCollector]

I did not expect miis in the thumbnail, but cool. I like the first song it seems.

[@LuisSantos-nf9rs]

Excellent video about tritone subs, David! Many thanks.

[@thejohnsweeney]

David Bennett threw a chair at my head when we were in jazz school together.

[@eagled2000]

Commenting for exposure

[@beclops]

Were you rushing or were you dragging?

[@simonvaughan6017]

Hearing a tritone will turn a mild-mannered musician into a chair-throwing hulk.

[@juanjg90]

I'm on David Bennett's side on this one.

[@thepostapocalyptictrio4762]

Well, that practice must have went well. Been there

[@patrickgalois4263]

You could have mentioned "If I fell" with 2 tritone substitutions in the first eight bars you treated in another video a few years ago, a really ambiguous tonality beginning for a pop song ever ! (sorry for my english, I am a french follower)

[@TenorCantusFirmus]

According to Erno Lendvai, Bela Bartok (which was his teacher in composition) thought of any chord to be repleaceable by chords one minor third or tritone away from it: i.e., C (major or minor doesn't matter) with either A, Eb or F#. This can lead to all sort of tritone substitutions, and even beyond.

[@epiphanydrums5427]

Seriously Clear! I’m getting another level of understanding from this study , thank you! 👍

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

There is one Tritone Sub that David didn’t mention, and I used it in a song back in third grade music class with Miss Martin. It uses a tritone of a tritone. I called it “Fingernails on the Blackboard”. She liked it so much she sent me to the Principals office and I got to transcribe it 100 times on said blackboard.

[@BruceEEvans1]

Good one, David. I have never before considered tritone subs of secondary dominants. I learned a lot from this video.

[@michaeldmytriw1047]

What incredible connections. You are a glorious music teacher of the highest order

[@strawberrymilkshakewithastraw]

This was a great lesson and really well explained! I honestly wonder how you can even find all those examples and with so much detail as well, you're really giving us whole backstories and history as well lol, really appreciate your effort put into these videos!

[@jonlohrenz5446]

I think this qualifies as a tri-tone substitution: the end of the bridge in The Beach Boys ‘Wouldn’t it Be Nice’. It goes from F#m7 to C7 to get back to F.

[@gillianomotoso328]

Also - I should note! I’ve been using a few of your videos to demonstrate theory concepts to my piano students!!! Much thanks to you and your channel David! An indelible resource 🎶🩷

[@spyderlogan4992]

Finally~!!! The tritone sub in 'Things We Said Today' is explained. I always LOVED that 'off chord' in that song. Thanks David~!!!

[@marktyler3381]

Solid analysis

[@JeanWJoseph]

I enjoyed the video a lot. As always the material is just so clearly explained

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Thank you! 😊

[@BORN753]

I knew what is a tritone sub before, but only now realise that I unknowingly used it in one of my songs simply because it sounded cool and it was part of a chromatic descending bass. It is the same as in Stevie Wonder's As, where the actual V is played before bII7, and that is why I think you can not really "un-substitute" it back and why it sounds bad with a regular V7. Bm/D -> Bsus2/D -> Bm/C# -> F#/C# -> F#m/C# -> F#m(add4)/C# -> F#(add4,b9)/C# -> C9 -> Bm. Actually I used it even twice in that song, the second time is even more bizzare than the previous one, I completely didn't understand what was that chord in a progression, but now I see that it is actually identical to first example. Here it is F9: Am -> C/G -> F9 -> Eadd#9 -> Fdim/E -> Am/E -> E7 -> Am.

[@geoffclarke1974]

The examples really conveyed the content. Excellent.

[@leelundgren600]

Neal Hefti's use of the tri-tone substitution in "Girl Talk" and "The Odd Couple" are beautiful examples.

[@eiredes666]

I can't get enough of these videos

[@DavidBennettPiano]

😁😁

[@BobAndGlueSticks]

Loved the video david. It really cleared up the fog in my head of what tritone subs are and now I understand them and can use then in my music :)

[@hectorzeronee]

Best way I've ever heard this described/taught. Ty

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Thanks 😊

[@bettyswunghole3310]

I think it's possible that Paul McCartney *_did_* know about tritone subs...he knows more theory than he lets on...

[@johnmac8084]

Yes, wasn't his dad a jazz musician?

[@pensivepenguin3000]

Yup. Back then, most kids had some kind of music lessons, even those who didn’t stick with it as adults. It’s a shame that’s not common place now, nor is music education, in public schools

[@dazza2350]

You don't need to know how it's called to be able to use it I used to use all this stuff before I knew the terminology for it

[@PlanetoftheDeaf]

He certainly was aware he was using interesting chords in that middle 8!

[@johnab67]

Sadly, we can't ask him because, of course, he died in 1965 and was replaced by an identical doppelganger who just happened to be even more talented than the original Paul. What are the chances? Only us really clever people know this.

[@lukaspfeil]

Here are a few examples of the V/iii tritone sub you were looking for: My Romance (Milt Jackson quartet), I Can't Give You Anything But Love (Diana Krall), September In The Rain (Roy Hargrove), There Is No Greater Love (Dinah Washington). The latter three admittedly happen to be followed by III7, but the function is the same. I think you could argue that in 'You Are The Sunshine of My Life', Stevie Wonder uses the same device in bar 2 of the melody, although the chord in question is technically not a dominant chord (E7), but F#/E.

[@jakeellobo]

This is such a relevant video for me because I just finished writing a song that features tritone substitution in a prominent way and I had no idea what the concept was.

[@bernhardkrickl3567]

And here I thought this was about Heavy Metal replacing every interval with a tritone to make it more evil.

[@pensivepenguin3000]

That could be a funny video - “(insert pop song name here) but it’s all Tritones” lol

[@atroposV]

Future Breed Machine intro is just this with minor 2nds

[@jg-reis]

@@atroposV Future Breed Machine... never heard of them but I'll look it up - it sounds like a garage band made up of adolescent boys! Breedin' is in the future, yep!

[@atroposV]

@@jg-reis Meshuggah is not in fact a teenage boy garage band

[@Sedyon]

🤣

[@ralphkolarik4115]

BTW, great tutorial, took all this stuff in College but found this more useful most likely due to your examples also helpful to be a video for reference later. Thanks again!

[@ericrakestraw664]

When I was studying music in college, I used a tritone substitution in one of my compositions before even knowing what a tritone sub was at the time. It just sounded like a cool progression to me, so I used it.

[@Gunnar5on]

Here is a chord progression for every trichord substitution 1st C Em F Db7 (C-Db7) 2nd C F Eb7 Dm G7 (Dm-Eb7) 3rd C F7 Em Am (Em-F7) 4th C Em Gb7 F (F-Gb7) 5thC F Ab7 G (G-Ab7) 6th C Bb7 Am G (Am-Bb7) 7th C F C7 Bdim (Bdim-C7)

[@kierandansey7293]

My favourite fact about Toxic is that it is about the Irish Super Vet Noel Fitzpatrick. Bonkers!

[@estebanrodriguez9007]

Fantastic video. I learned so much!

[@douglaspantz]

I would appreciate more videos touching on jazz and jazz chords/harmony!

[@squashfan9526]

Great video, again, David, thanks. The Bb7 in Oasis 'Let There Be Love' can also be seen as a backdoor-dominant, as it's a 7th chord rooted a tone down from C, the one-chord. Not sure if you've explained backdoor-dominants before, David, maybe a video on that topic?

[@weepingscorpion8739]

The way I remember making a tritone sub (which is perhaps a bit complex but well) was to take a dominant b5b9 chord, remove the bottom note and replace the new bottom note on the top. So, take G7b5b9, you have G - B - Db - F - Ab, now remove the G and respell the B to the top: Db - F - Ab - Cb and voilà, tritone substitution. Likewise if we were in C and wanted a tritone sub to the F, we'd go C7b5b9 C - E - Gb - Bb - Db, remove and respell and we get Gb - Bb - Db - Fb ie. Gb7 > F. So it is maybe a bit complicated but it works.

[@Ilya-hl8jx]

It' rather #11 than flat5

[@STERNWAERTS]

15:02 ohh that's so cool, i was just playing this song in bed last night (as you do) and i've always loved the move from C (X32010) to Bb9 (X10111). I didn't know it was a tritone sub and was actually wondering about that just 12 hours ago haha. Because in the verse it's an E augmented chord (032100) which is just as cool. great video!

[@gavinrode9153]

thank you david, another fantastic vid

[@Luke08Sadler]

Hey man love the channel! You tend to focus on chord sequences and theory (which is great and i've learnt a lot). As a beginner keyboard player I was wondering if you could make a video on how to make a chord sequence interesting by doing more than just playing block chords. A great example is how Elton John's playing sounds so fluid, tasteful and interesting while obviously there is an underlying chord sequence there

[@SongSecretsMomNeverTaughtYou]

The Andy Williams recording of "Days Of Wine And Roses" uses a similar tritone sub as the Oasis song! The first three chords are F - Eb7 - D7 (instead of Dm which is used later in the song)

[@pensivepenguin3000]

Aww I love that song. I’m a fan of anything Andy Williams sings

[@Kevhuman]

I believe that Christian Karlsson (galantis,miikesnow,bloodshy& Avant) was also involved with the production of Toxic.

[@jkimp9522]

Thanks to you, I finally get it!!!

[@DavidBennettPiano]

@@jkimp9522 😃😃😃

[@michaelsophini6]

I’m the third watching!

[@DavidBennettPiano]

You’re first! (The other two were automatic spam that I’ve deleted)

[@JiveDadson]

Many jazz improvisers used what Jerry Coker called "side slips" in their solos. Coker said it could sound like briefly putting one's finger on a phonograph turntable. Dexter Gordon frequently moved the other way, briefly slipping up a half tone. In almost every case, the lick could be understood as some sort of tritone sub.

[@yisroelmeth]

Great video David!!

[@pensivepenguin3000]

More videos on the work of Michael McDonald and the Doobies would be awesome! Thanks David for another great upload

[@gxbrxxl9626]

8:15 very true, even tho I'm not an artist, I've always catched myself noticing picardy thirds before even knowing what that was, and thinking they're the most beautiful thing ever

[@Chrisranthony]

Fascinating!! Now to write something using this idea.

[@RobertCrickmore]

Pretty sure Paul Mccartney knew theory. His father John was an accomplished jazz trumpeter and pianist in the 20's until WW2. He grew up with a piano in the house. He may not have actually studied all that but he grew up with it. They would not have called it tritone subs in those days. I had a friend who graduated from the Warsaw Conservatory and I played her some Chick Corea and she listened once and played it almost perfectly. The second listen she nailed it. She had no clue what the names of jazz chords were, she said all that chord movement and harmonies were functions. I asked her to explain and she played something classical (I forget now) and said this is a function of this chord which leads to that chord which is a function of this chord , etc. But ask her to play a C Maj 7 she has no clue.

[@davidwalterhall]

I'd often play the last line in a blues in E by going B7 / C9 B7 / E / E7 B7 or something like that - the C9 or C7 being a sub for the II chord or the V/V if you prefer. But for years I always thought it was a weird chromatic thing that shouldn't work. My basic understanding of theory at the time told me that C7 was not in the key of E, and it baffled me that it sounded so natural, and familiar too - I didn't invent it obviously. I did crack the tritone sub code at some point later on, reading about it somewhere and realising it explained my C9, but it was so satisfying. Music theory can be like learning astronomy. It only enhances the wonder.

[@ric8248]

You're Going To Lose That Girl, the way they modulate back to E is perfect in every way.

[@martifingers]

The clear explanation with excellent real world examples is perfect. Typical DB video.

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Glad it was helpful!

[@andrewgeher1032]

Best tritone sub of all time (in my opinion) is “I Can’t Help It” written by Stevie Wonder. Starting on the sub is totally awesome.

[@Typical.Anomaly]

I'd like to humbly request that you look into the theory behind Childish Gambino's "24.19"; I think many call it "Thank You," because of the outro. ✌️❤️🤘

[@britnickmusic]

An example of tritone substitution by The Beatles: If you pay atention to 'Till There Was you' you will notice that the solo structure is slightly different than the verse, because John replaces the last (Am-G#-G) C9 - F with a (Am-G#-G) F# - F (George plays a F#7#9 over that F#)

[@6040nick]

Play an E7#5#9, then swap the E in the bass with the tritone (Bb), and you have a Bb13 chord. There are many harmonic subs like this in jazz and you can go around the circle by moving the bass in fourths and moving the right hand in semitones or any combination of fourths or semitone in the left hand (bass)

[@thomasoa]

I once found a tritone substitution in a Haydn string quartet. Specifically, near the beginning of the second movement of the "Horseman" quartet. In particular, it is a V7/ii chord, a G major seventh chord in the key of E major.

[@basketcase1285]

Busy Doing Nothing by the Beach Boys ❤

[@lightningrt434]

I’ve been playing a variation of one note samba since a guy showed it to me 40 years ago. Never knew. I’m a rock and blues guitarist btw. The flatted 2nd was always on the bass. I’ll use it more now.

[@Arycke]

That Half Nelson is my favorite Tadd Dameron turnaround. Tritone subbed major 7ths make them very Dameronian

[@Neil_SM]

I have to smile at the British pronunciations of some words. Like in the US we say Samba like “Somm-bah,” but David's accent it’s more “Sam-ber.” It’s like sometimes the British go out of their way to make foreign-import words more English sounding. Like pronouncing the t in valet or filet.

[@ryantomczik4916]

@DavidBennetPiano I think a better way of thinking of these chords are Secondary German Augmented Chords, but it is interesting how the tritone is preseved. I remember I analyzed one of these as a Secondary Neopolitan 7th and got it it wrong and then I met with my professor and convinced to give me credit after class because the Ger+6/IV is the same chord N7 only it resolves to the V/V instead of the V.

[@Nanertot]

Adding to the Nintendo examples, the Eldin Temple theme from Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom also uses a Tritone sub pretty prominently. And that track is a banger as well lol.

[@samsongwriter3437]

Dear David, your entire channel content is the equivalent of going to a music university. Thank you so much, and let me know anytime you plan traveling to Brazil.

[@Kevhuman]

There is a notable tritone sound in Jesus Christ Superstar in the "this Jesus must die" scene, when they sing "he is dangerous"

[@josemaria8177]

One thing I'll say about him, Jesus is cool

[@Yupppi]

"What is tritone sub?" "Chromatic bass line" I swear after watching this I think any chord in a song can be called tritone sub. The outro song was cool. Both the bassline and lead were rather enjoyable vibe.

[@camerongalovan7156]

another really cool tritone sub is in Billy Joel's "Vienna" where it subs the V of F (the V) for Gb, right before it goes "vienna waits for you" in that classic bit

[@MakingaStink]

Really like how the bass chromatically rises and descends.

[@lilvince9647]

6:18 I feel like the Db7 chord is more of a tritone sub for C since that's the chord it resolves to, except it's minor.

[@LuiyoSA]

the other day I saw a video where the tritone sub was explained as "the 7th chord a semitone up of the target chord", and I think is the simplest way to remember it

[@Baile_an_Locha]

The Beatles may not have heard of a tritone substitution, but George Martin definitely had…

[@MrFuzzleupagus]

I’m going to have to watch and rewatch this video a couple hundred times to “get it”.

[@carlogonza1126]

Hi David! I’m a fan of your channel! I’d just like to know if you could feature this question on your next Q&A! Question: Why does the chord progression B Minor, F# sus4, and then a F# Major Triad sound so pleasing on a piano? Thanks!

[@ThomasMarron]

Hans Zimmer used a Tritone Substitution for his track Dream is Collapsing from Inception. G minor - F# major (C minor) - Eb major - B major (F major)

[@jeff__w]

16:24 “But I couldn’t find an example of that [a tritone sub of the V/iii].” At which point I was hoping for something like “So I composed my own” and then we’d be treated to an undoubtedly gorgeous original David Bennett composition (because, well, they all are). _Sigh._ 😔

[@artrogers3985]

Really good. I guess it’s pretty hard to keep coming up with new technical subjects. More “identify this Beatles tune in one note” videos. 🎸

[@schaerfentiefe1967]

Many Britney Spears songs are surprisingly well composed! 😇

[@RS-xp8bx]

Hey David! In the Luther Vandross song "A House Is Not a Home," there's a ii/IV that precedes the secondary dominant of V/IV. I need a bit of a refresher on the function of this ii/IV. I'm used to seeing V/(chord in the scale), but not as often a ii/(chord in the scale). Is this also related to the secondary dominant or is this a different concept altogether? As always, another great video. Keep it up!

[@DavidBennettPiano]

The ii/IV is a “secondary subdominant”. So it’s the same idea as a secondary dominant, but with the ii chord of another key, rather than the V.

[@RS-xp8bx]

@@DavidBennettPiano Thank you so much for clearing that up for me David! I really appreciate it.

[@EdibleGlue369]

I love your breakdowns! Would you check out some of Ginger Root's work one day? They've got these really infectious and nostalgic arrangments I think you'd also enjoy breaking down

[@earthlightsmusic2743]

An instance of that VII7 V/iii IV7 could be used in a jazzy cover of some of Justin Hayward's classic (1968-1973) Moody Blues tunes, possibly.

[@irel12]

4:06 MENTIRA QUE ELE COLOCOU ESSA MÚSICA

[@irel12]

0:31 FINALLY I FOUND THIS MUSIC

[@jamesdignanmusic2765]

A track which uses tritone sub nicely is the bossanova-inspired Paul Simon composition "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright": it's most noticeable in the coda, where a progression of Abm, Db, Gb changes to becomes Abm, G, Gb. And I'm pretty sure the tritone sub V/iii is used somewhere in Philip Glass's "Songs from Liquid Days", but for the life of me I can't pinpoint which track...

[@JoeDeCarlo-km9nf]

Love Tritone subs

[@Low.Key.Music01]

I was doing a chord progression on my guitar and thought it sounded cool. But I didn't know if there was a name for what I was doing. Lo and behold, I watched this video and learned it's a tritone sub

[@JoeSim8s]

Thank you!

[@althealligator1467]

The chorus of Radiohead's Just has that weird Gb7 chord in the key of C, which is the tritone sub of C7 going to F. This sams chord progression happens in Joshua Lee Turner's Rockaway but in the key of D.

[@ChocolateJesii]

I don't know of any songs that use the bV7 of V/iii, but I know one that uses the V/iii and its a really nice bluesy sound. The song is "Waiter Ask The Man To Play The Blues" by Freddy Cole. I'm going to try the tritone sub and see what it sounds like later.

[@UltimateSessionBassGym-ns2cy]

Great stuff 👍

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Thanks 👍