The Power Of The TRITONE: Resolutions, Substitutions, The "Magic Second" And Lydian Mode

[@DarkSideofSynth]

Dreadful weather so, to lighten things up, let's talk about the tritorne! Bill, you're a genius. British humour at its best ;) Oh, get those 2 books, folks. Great material.

[@BillHilton]

The secret is that I actually LIKE the terrible weather... Thanks very much for the kind words about the books, too!

[@DarkSideofSynth]

@@BillHilton Hehehe. I've just woken up to some terrible weather here too: cloudy and super windy and chilly. No worries, they are great books. It's just the truth. Have a great day.

[@BillHilton]

@@DarkSideofSynth And you!

[@pete3562]

That's fascinating. I tried to learn the modes on guitar. It's much clearer now you explained the Lydian Mode on the piano keyboard. Thank you.

[@BillHilton]

Glad it helped, Pete!

[@sublimetrance]

I started playing with the piano a couple of years after playing guitar. It was then that I started understanding music theory a whole lot more. I almost think every guitar player should tinker with piano just for that purpose.

[@darrenclarke8655]

Very very good. Best and simplest explanation of tritone substitution I have heard. All very helpful Thankyou

[@BillHilton]

Thanks Darren - really glad you liked it!

[@nanob0zo]

Agree. Very good video.

[@gloriabrinkworth8320]

love your explanation of tritone substitution and more. very intricate and deep thank u

[@BillHilton]

You’re welcome, Gloria!

[@jayagopi1]

Probably the best piano video on tritones. Bravo Bill. You smashed it. Loved your examples on the usage. Thanks for sharing 👍👍🙂

[@BillHilton]

Thanks very much indeed Jayagopi - you're welcome, and I'm really glad you liked it!

[@megaanderson97]

my brain struggled to understand what a tritone substitution was until i watched this. Thanks

[@BillHilton]

Glad it helped, Gerald!

[@brianstanley8704]

Excellent explanations as usual Bill. You are introducing me to so many new theoretical (and useful) ideas I never knew even though I have been playing for 30 plus years.

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome, Brian - btw your email is on my "to reply" list. I'm just going a bit slower than usual this week!

[@davidnaef1]

Thank you so much dear Bill. Keep it up. I would miss this tutorials very much.

[@BillHilton]

There are more to come David, don't worry about that! Glad you like them!

[@andrewlewis2167]

Great explanation.. but I find it easier to identify tritones by playing the flat ninth of the target chord then relsove an half step lower

[@hacerclic1020]

These are some great insights, Bill. I had begun experimenting with this sound by ear without understanding the theory behind it. This video sheds new light on my efforts. This was well-timed. Thank you!

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome - glad it was helpful!

[@gregoryhaddock5395]

You are an outstanding teacher! I'm considering become a Patreon supporter because your content is VERY helpful and much appreciated.

[@BillHilton]

Thanks Gregory! It would be great to see you over on Patreon (unless you’ve already signed up using a different username from this one). Let me know if you have any questions/anything I can help with!

[@tonylancer7367]

"Brighten/Lighten up your day with the devil's interval". That's the power of the tritone. 😂

[@luispavlov3078]

Hi just here to say you have a an amazing channel every time I say a video a learn a lot. I know it is not you area of study but could you do a video analyzing Freddie Mercury piano technique and musicality regarding the piano, it would be a fun video

[@BillHilton]

Thanks very much indeed for taking the time to say so, Luis!

[@Jejemusic15]

Great lesson 🎼... Thanks

[@BillHilton]

You’re welcome!

[@jimmyvchambers]

Such a great video. Thank you!L

[@BillHilton]

Glad you enjoyed it Jimmy!

[@notevoyadarminombre156]

Great explanation. Thank you very much!

[@BillHilton]

Glad you enjoyed it, Juan!

[@Cooper349]

Well explained👌

[@BillHilton]

Damn fine comment, Agent Cooper!

[@michaelfitzurka5659]

so good ty BH

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome, Michael!

[@MrMikomi]

Nice, thanks.

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome!

[@supunpemachandra6082]

Sir you are great❤️

[@BillHilton]

Thank you, Supun!

[@x2mars]

Thanks!

[@BillHilton]

You're welcome!

[@benjaminmargulies1853]

Let's call the note a tritone away from C "february" because it represents "february" in the chromatic scale calendar

[@MottyRuttner]

amazing

[@BillHilton]

Thanks Motty!

[@i3gallery]

BURN THE HERETICS! CAST OUT THE DEVIL! Only joking but the church wasn't back in the medieval phase of music. Still, I like to think a tritone sounds so dissonant because equal temperament tuning doesn't accurately describe a full picture of tonal space but saying that, no tuning system accurately describes tonal space as a whole and our "acoustic" brains are very much geared to accepting the equal temperament tuning system. I love music theory, we all have to remember it's only theory and not fact :p Still, Bill does a fantastic job at really breaking down the concepts of the video in an elegantly simple way that really does allow people to absorb the information. Thanks for great content which is why I am sharing the love from Kent :D

[@BillHilton]

Thank you! Temperament does blow people's minds a little bit - I remember a couple of years ago trying to explain to my aunt at a family party why it was that barbershop quartets sound (in her words) "out of tune". She was a bit put-out when I told her that the barbershop guys were pretty well tuned, and it was her BRAIN that was out of tune because she'd spent her life listening to 12TET sounds. It's a lonely battle... :/

[@i3gallery]

​@@BillHilton Love the fact you describe it as a "lonely battle", it does make some of us appear like we wear tin-foil hats when we talk along those lines. Having come from a production based education as opposed to a theory and performance education but still had a little access to some theory education, it's really weird that people are only taught the small amount of "general music theory" and accept it as pure fact. I originally looked at functional harmony from a mathematical perspective and after a little while, it was really easy to draw the conclusion that there is no "unifying" theory of western music in mathematics because equal temperament tuning doesn't offer the full picture, hell, even if you add in the other tuning systems (tuning wars) no one can even describe mathematically correct pitches, only the geometry that mathematically incorrect pitches make which reinforces the idea that our appreciation of equal temperament tuning is a pure illusion hoisted upon the masses. Still, I'll don my tin-foil hat with pride and play the part of the jester knowing that the big joke is on those trying to classify and quantify the fundamentals of western music :D It's definitely one of the subjects I could "rage" about for hours but I'll stop myself before I hijack this comment thread completely :p

[@BillHilton]

@@i3gallery Rage away - it's all interesting stuff. I remember confiding to my school Music teacher that I loved Music but found Maths dull (forgive me; I was 13 and didn't know better). He replied along the lines of "BUT THEY'RE THE SAME SUBJECT, HILTON!"

[@i3gallery]

@@BillHilton Fantastic come-back from your school music teacher in defence of maths. To be fair, if I were the music teacher, I probably would have carried out the "shame" scene from G.O.T throughout the school just because I have a draconian streak in me hehe. To play your advocate for a minute though, maths expresses music theory's inefficiencies so at that age, you could have hated maths on the grounds that it "disproves", to a certain degree, what your music teacher was teaching which was more geared towards "indoctrination" that music theory in the Western sense was/is fully defined and that nothing would ever be able to damage that viewpoint as well as being geared towards accepting the non-definable aspect of "feeling the music". How can you put feelings in to numbers....the empirical side of my logic just explodes at that point haha. Still, it's been a great little chat but I've got to shutdown, as I've got four little ones primed to get me up at silly o'clock so sleep is at a premium, even if it does clash with my love of research! Look forward to watching more great content!

[@michaelzinna6536]

In other words flat II dominant chords resolve to I

[@supunpemachandra6082]

1st comment mine

[@davegriff1593]

To many adverts. To much flogging at the beginning. Still good though.

[@BillHilton]

This is my full time job, Dave - I need to make a living. If you lack the patience to sit through a minute of it, skip forward.

[@CStoph1979]

You know there are beginner vidoes that cover half of the information in this one. Please dont make more intermediate and advanced videos that spend so much time on ultra basic theory. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[@BillHilton]

Unfortunately there are other learners out there who have different levels of knowledge from yours, and in trying to make tutorials that suit a wide range of people I have to accept I can't please all of them. At the time of writing this comment, I seem to have pleased 477 of them to the point that they've hit the "like" button, which doesn't strike me as too much of a failure. As for your needs, well, there are plenty of other people making music tutorials on KZbin - perhaps I could suggest you try one of them?

[@jackbussy3133]

Can’t we just simply say : 1. What characterizes a chord is its 3rd and 7th 2. When you Tritone substitute you take a dominant chord (let’s say G7) which has B as a 3rd and F as a seven and change it into.....(drums rolling) 3. Db 7 which has B as a 7 and F as a 3rd 4. So, to our ears the « characterization » sounds the same. The other notes (here G and D for the G chord, and Db and Ab for the Db chord) are just different colours...

[@BillHilton]

Yes, we could say that, Jack - the interesting thing about anything tritone-related is the way you can look at it from several different angles and explain it using several different theoretical frameworks, all of which may be true, but few of which manage to capture all the possible opportunities/explanations!