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Dominant Chords and Tritones

This document discusses dominant chords and tritone substitution. It explains that the third and seventh notes of dominant chords are important for establishing key and tonality. A tritone is defined as an interval of three whole tones that does not occur naturally in major or minor keys but does in modes like Lydian and Locrian. Tritone substitution involves replacing a dominant seventh chord with the seventh chord a tritone above it, which should not work due to being in different keys but does work because the two chords share two notes that form a tritone, providing strong voice leading when resolving.

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Martin Hemingway
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282 views2 pages

Dominant Chords and Tritones

This document discusses dominant chords and tritone substitution. It explains that the third and seventh notes of dominant chords are important for establishing key and tonality. A tritone is defined as an interval of three whole tones that does not occur naturally in major or minor keys but does in modes like Lydian and Locrian. Tritone substitution involves replacing a dominant seventh chord with the seventh chord a tritone above it, which should not work due to being in different keys but does work because the two chords share two notes that form a tritone, providing strong voice leading when resolving.

Uploaded by

Martin Hemingway
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Dominant Chords

*Most important notes:


 3rd – acts as the leading note to the tonic key,
o resolving UP to the tonic,
o thus establishing Key Centre

 7th – is a suspended 4th in the tonic key,


o resolving DOWN to the 3rd of the tonic key,
o thus establishing Tonality  either major or minor.

*NOTE: the interval created by the major 3rd and minor 7th is a TRITONE

TRITONE:
 the interval of 3 tones
o eg C  F#
 (C-D; D-E; E-F#)

 can also be thought of as:


o Augmented 4th
o Diminished 5th

*this interval:
o Does NOT occur in standard western major or minor keys in relation to the
tonic note.
o Does occur in certain modes such as Lydian & Locrian (4th & 7th modes of
the major scale)
o Is exactly half an octave
o When inverted it also creates a tritone

TRITONE SUBSTITUTION
 Can be done when there is a V7 (Dominant 7) chord that is acting as a
dominant
o This means that it is resolving to its tonic
o eg G7 - C
 nb there are many examples where 7 (Dominant) chords do
not resolve to their tonic in a progression
 eg C7 – G7 – Ab7 – F7

 The V7 chord is replaced with the 7 chord a tritone above it


o ie the chord a tritone above the dominant is substituted for the
dominant
o eg in the key of C:
 V7 = G7
 tritone from G  Db
 therefore:
 G7 – C
becomes
 Db7 – C

***But how can this work????


***Db is a semitone above C????
***Db7 is the V7 of Gb
***The two keys are super different…………
***C has no sharps or flats
***Gb has 6 flats!!
***They only have 2 “notes” in common…..this should not work!!!!!!!!!!***

o What are these two notes?


 B (or Cb)
 F
o Notice that:
 these two notes are a TRITONE apart.
 B is the 3rd of G7
 B is the 7th of Db7 (it is actually Cb, the enharmonic of B)
 F is the 7th of G7
 F is the 3rd of Db7

 Voice Leading from Db7 – C is super strong.


1. 3rd: F  falls a semitone to the 3rd - E
2. 7th: B  rises a semitone to the 1st - C
3. 5th: Ab  falls a semitone to the 5th - G
4. 1st: Db  falls a semitone to the 1st - C

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