These videos are great, all content, no filler and delivered in a clear way with just enough quirky humour. They also have a great balance of theory and actual usage. Perfect! Please keep em coming.
Ah, thanks so much for your kind comment and generosity. I’m pleased you keep finding value in my videos. I’ve got no plans to stop anytime soon, just have to keep finding things to talk about!
You're literally teaching everything I'm learning at Berklee online. If anyone has any doubts, this is the real deal. Thank you for these videos, it's helping me reinforce everything I've learned so far. Keep doing you my friend ✌🏼
That’s so cool, what’s the course you’re taking? I’m sure the guys teaching that know far more than me but I’m glad you’ve found my stuff useful! Thanks for watching and I appreciate your comment. 🙏
Hey Michael. I've taken the Music Theory & Composition Courses 1-3 and am currently enrolled in Orchestration 1. Absolutely love the classes. I come from a rock and blues background and was self taught before Berklee. Learning about Secondary Doms and Tritone Subs literally blew my mind. Thank you for all the work you put into these videos, they really are excellent and what you're teaching is spot on.
@@cali3168 That sounds really cool! I'll have to check out their syllabus, it might give me ideas for future videos! 😆 Good luck with all your studying and really pleased to hear that your appreciating my videos alongside your Berklee teaching. Cheers mate. 👍
Finally found someone that can explain tritone substitution in a way that can be easy to understand. Loved this video, and already subscribed to your channel. I really hope your channel grows and gains a lot of subscribers, you deserve it. Such a unique style to explain music. Cheers!
Ah, thanks! Really pleased you got something from the video. I’d love to see the channel grow too and really appreciate your comment, hopefully other people agree and come and join the party!🥳
Thank you, so many videos I’ve seen on tritone substitution didn’t explain as well in 10 or 20+ minutes what you were able to explain clearly and succinctly in the first 3:30 of this one. You are a natural teacher
What about IIs chords? We can also use it like tritone sub in II-V progression. Dm7 - G7 = Abm7 - Db7. And also combine nature and tritone sub II-V like Dm7-Abm7-G7-Db7.
You are not only master at your craft, but also a master at being really clear in your teachings. I think i've commented this before, but your channel really deserves more subscribers and attention. Also, you seem like a really down to earth guy who deserves it. Very grateful for the great content. It has really kept me occupied since i've found your channel. I would like to share that this year my sister passed away due to cancer, and i haven't played guitar nor practiced music for several years, but i played on her funeral with her daughter singing and after that i have started coming back to music, it is my therapy.. And your content and the way you teach, helps a lot on how i can evolve my way to express myself through music and deal with the pain.. So thanks a lot, and i really really hope you can grow this channel to the extent it deserves. I hope i can do my share on your way and help come up with ideas for content/topics that would be interesting to learn deeper about. Thanks Michael, best regards from Sweden 🇸🇪❤
🙏 Thank you! I really appreciate your support and encouragement. I'm glad you're enjoying the content and keep coming back for more! We can only hope that others feel the same as you and the channel continues to grow! Sorry to hear about your sister but it's great to hear that you're returning to music and using it to help you heal and I am really pleased that I'm a small part of that, thank you for sharing. Cheers. See you in the next video!
I think of it the exact same way. if I had to guess, at least for me, It may be because the ones you think of as sharps have the most black keys, making them seem "sharper" if you get what I mean. cause compared to c major, you have to raise more notes than in eb and bb. my second theory is that it's some sort of subconscious division of the notes on the keyboard. if you think of an octave starting on c, c and e outline the first pair of sharps, and f and b outline the second, which may make them a more notable mental landmark. it's probably not true, but the thought is interesting
Perfect video! I've been consuming your videos like crazy and it's so much valuable information I cannot thank you enough! Michael do you by any chance have a video on "voice leading"? I've been trying to find one but I didn't, that's a topic I always hear about and it hasn't been clear for me just reading stuff online... Cheers from Brazil, appreciate your content a lot as there isn't anything like that on my native language youtube :)
@@SOLLAX Hey Carlos! Thanks for watching the videos. I don’t have one on voice leading yet but I’ll add it to my list! Cheers for the comment and suggestion 🙏
50 years of playing the piano and being oblivious to all this stuff. Thanks so much for your engaging style. All this theory about modes and dominant chords and tritones etc seemed to be 'based' on a major chord. I was wondering how a minor chord 'base' works with these things. Tritones would not be the same?
Thanks David, I'm glad you're enjoying the videos and finding some value. You should experiment with the minor chords and see what you think - it's all about personal preference at the end of the day. I guess they wouldn't be classed as a traditional tritone substitution but definitely worth experimenting with. If you played the tritone sub as a minor major7 it would make sense as Modal Interchange, borrowing from the seventh mode of the Harmonic minor or Melodic minor scales. Thanks for the comment. Happy exploring! 🎹🎵🎶
Thanks for pointing out that the Tritone Sub is basically just a downward chromatic resolution (ii7-bII7-I). I’m a autodidact, and so for years the whole “tritone away from the V7” stuff just seemed too cerebral to me to utilize until I realized how intuitive it is to just think: *dominant 7th a half-step above the target chord*
Good spot. My bad. I'm used to playing with a bass player where my left hand typically would be playing the 3rd and 7th with an upper structure II in my right hand to give me the 9 #11 and 13. Trying to spread the chord here and usually when I do that I'll squeeze in 3rd in the cluster upper structure or flick off it but I missed it at that point. Thanks for watching! 👍🏻
Perhaps that is why the 'early' Church considered the tritone the so-called 'devils interval'; when you invert it, it stays the same. Think about it...
I've been playing piano now for over 40 years, a former weaver by occupation, a mathematics enthusiast - I love to think in patterns Your explanation and demonstration of tritones is the first time it made perfect sense for me Subscrbed and going back to see your other videos. Thanks for the video and keep up the amazing work.
But what is a tritone really, is it 7:5 from the overtone series (583 cents), 612 cents from the cycle of fifths or what? And to add to that the distance between the shell tones is quite different in the tritone substitution, 617 as opposed to 583 cents.
Ha! That’s gone completely over my head but I reckon you and Jacob Collier could probably have a fun conversation about it! Hopefully there was something in the video that was useful. Thanks for watching. 👍🏼
@@michaelkeithson Thanks, the video inspired me to write and study this topic further, namely what constitutes tension and release in music, mostly from the perspective of overtone structures. Great production and well presented, a joy to watch.
Guitar player here who also writes for orchestra as a hobby. Thinking in flats is WAY easier, somehow, than thinking in sharps. Despite the fact that many famous guitar songs are in "sharp" keys. (A, E, G, D). But that has to do with the standard tuning of guitars. If I'm writing for guitar, I almost always use the open tuning to play to the the instruments strengths. For anything else, it's almost always flat keys. Bb, F, Ab, Eb. That may be due to many wind and brass instruments tuned to Bb. With all that said, it may just be easier to think in "half step down" than "half step up". Just taking a shot in the dark here :D
Do that, but go up a fourth and play 1-b5-b3-4-1 chord and resolve it the the 2 degree with some extensions of your parent scale and it sounds nice resolving back to the 1
For me, on a keyboard, I immediately think of Bb and Eb, rather than A# and D#. C# and F# is easier than Db, Gb. Ab is easier than G#. I have no idea why.. maybe years of playing trombone?
I'm never going to remember all of this but I like the easy tip that the substitution is a flat second up from the "Target" one chord. Also, I now know what a shell chord is. 👍
I think the tendency to favor flats comes from jazz, which seems to be your background? Flat keys are easier for horn players. In orchestral writing, the tendency is the opposite-sharp keys because the keys with sharps in them are easier for strings (this also goes for guitar if you think about the guitar keys that best with the open strings). I'm a pianist, but my background is classical (late romantic) so I tend to default to sharps. Even when I'm playing/writing pop stuff, I often have the guitar in mind, so that has me thinking in G E A D and C.
That makes perfect sense! Yes, I've played more jazz than anything else in recent years which do tend to be in flat keys so makes sense that I'm more comfortable there. I play a little guitar too and you're right, when I'm writing on or playing guitar I only play in sharp keys (unless there's a capo involved!). Thanks for the comment! 👍
@@michaelkeithson Thanks for the lessons Michael. You’re a very good teacher. If you feel like this suits your interests and skills, I’d love to see some lessons on looking for (I hate this word because it suggests a gimmick) a “hook” to build a song around. In some ways that seems to be the most elusive but also the most precious aspect of songwriting, and yet it seems like learning the basic grammar of music (secondary dominant movement, modal interchange, etc etc) doesn’t fully solve it. But is there a toolbox for doing it? And what are those tools? Are they more about setting up the right conditions (eg writing against a formulaic “dummy” bassline, arbitrarily selecting a a few pitches and submitting them to a set of transformations a la Stravinsky, reharmonizing someone else’s melody and then throwing away the melody to write a new one, etc etc)? It seems like the solutions to the problem of “hook” writing are in some ways more meta in this way, more similar in some ways to the way a contemporary visual artist might generate ideas. I feel like the most promising approaches involve writing a part to something else that’s already recorded, but I find it hard to produce that first part to then write against, because with no context for it yet, it is so unexciting that I always scrap it. Hopefully both the request here and the explanation make sense.
@@herschoolcolors Thanks for the comment. I think that's a really tough one, I'm not sure if there's a technique to writing a 'hook', I think it might even be something you don't know you've done until afterwards. I've just hear Katy Perry's song 'Never Really Over' and I think it has a great hook in the chorus but it's all on one note! It seems to me there are multiple factors that can create a good hook and maybe it has be some magic combination of melody and harmony or melody and rhythm or harmony and rhythm and I feel it's one of those things that every songwriter on the planet is trying to uncover in their songs . Every now and again the songwriting gods are kind enough to bless someone with a catchy earworm of a hook. I'm not sure I'm qualified to talk about it due to my feeling that it's not only subjective but also some how mystical!
Was looking for this comment. Same here, thinking in flats is somehow easier than thinking in sharps (except when playing in G where I prefer 1 sharp over … 11 flats I suppose? 🙂)
Just stumbled across your channel and after watching a few videos it was an easy subscribe. You and Kurt Rosenwinkel are going to get my playing more pointed in the right direction (for me at least) for sure. Keep up the great work.
This is amazing! My first time watching you. If I could have watched your videos forty years ago, I might be a different player now. So concise and clear. BTW and unrelated to how great your delivery is, there is *substantial* sub-bass content in your audio when you move your microphone stand. A 40Hz low cut might leave you more headroom. Thanks again. Subscribed!
Thanks Chet! Glad you're enjoying the videos. Thanks for the feedback too, I guess my headphones and speakers weren't picking that up. I'll try to mindful in future 👍
Michael thanks so much for all your content, it both helps me understand things I wondered about and introduces new ideas that I immediately can use in my playing and writing! You’re a great teacher, and have great humor to top it off :) There is a question that you (or anyone else reading this) can hopefully help me with: when playing with others, can I freely substitute chords as we play, while the rest of the players play the ‘original’ chords? So for instance, when a leadsheet says ‘G7’ (approaching a C major), can I play a Db7, while the guitar player sticks to the G7? And how does this work with other kinds of subs, or adding secondary dominants for instance? Can it be just me? (I know i know, tools not rules, but I’m curious about your thoughts on this 😄)
Hey Tom, thanks for the comment. Glad you enjoyed the video. In answer to your question, it sort of depends on the situation and where you play the chords. In your example, I would say yes, you could play the Db7 while your guitarist and bass player play G as it will effectively convert that chord into a G7alt chord (I would avoid playing a low Db in the bass though). But maybe a better choice would be to play the G7, then in the gap just before the C, play your Db7. Adding a secondary dominant can work in a similar way but if the rest of the band aren't aware you will want to make it fleeting, like a swift passing chord. I think you should experiment in some rehearsals and find what works then it starts to become more intuitive where and when these subs can work if no-one else is doing them! Hope that helps 😬
Hey Terrance, unfortunately I don't have any pdfs to accompany. I find it's enough work just focussing on the making the video! I guess the beauty of RU-vid is that you can pause, slow down and re-watch. Sorry I can't be more helpful.
Thank you much! I am a euphonium player and I learnt flat scales first (F, Bb, Eb, etc.) so I generally prefer flats. Plus, I always forget how many sharps C# and F# have 😅
I came back to this video because of this damn song from the JAPANESE pop artist of course with their crazy harmony, has my head breaking . ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ptiK8U4WlSc.htmlsi=3VQvaoptbEVq5jzi (beautiful song) can you imagine a pop song with this harmony in the usa lol. I have been trying to figure out he has been functioning the augmented in there! (that would be a great video) as techcnially Min-Major can be Secondary dom function. now the thing is its in A major (but modualtes) and the intro has a cadence ends with a Bb Major, so heres the thing does that function as a tritone sub or maybe a backdoor w/e I though tritone subs, had to be a doms now I looked it up and people say, they can be without the 7ths in this case Ab , but I thought that wasn't the case. And So if we are in A major and we borrow Bb, aren't we borrowing from Phrgyian . IDK why lol minor 2nds movements, from root note just instantly make me thing , Phyry, Phryig dom. so then I remembered this Phil collins song , EASY lover (Great song btw) that does the same thing. but to me that sounds more Phrygian than this. cause he is really going in on that minor 2nd sound for almost 8 bars fuck i hate borrowed chords breaking my brain lol.
Ha! You love it really, don't you?! This may sound strange coming from someone like me, but I'd say don't get too hung up on why composers and songwriters are making certain choices and try to connect it back to a theoretical technique. I think more often than not, composers are being led by their ears and emotions more than they are trying to execute a specific composition tool. Sometimes there's seemingly no theoretical reason for some choices. It's nice to connect the dots when we can but I think sometimes there aren't any dots to connect. In the case of Bb major next to your A major, my understanding of tritone subs is that they should be dominant 7 chords, however if it was a major 7 then that would 'fit' our understanding of modal interchange, so you'd be borrowing from the parallel Phrygian, a Bbmaj7 would exist in A Phrygian. So I tend to lean towards that explanation when that happens. Cheers for you comment. I'll go and have a listen to that song. 👍
this was great man . Thank you so much for the content and graphics, if you're doing it from PS then you're a king. Some other topics that I wanna make sure I am grounded on. since we are on the subject of Borrowed harmony topics I can help you XD. Backdoor 2, 5 , 1's is a big one Chromatic mediants Borrowed Neigtbor tone of vii/ x kind of going over since the Tritone sub , can function the same way . the voicings for the 7ths that as most popular and alterations like this #11 you did for this.
Whenever I try to use any scale over top of a Tritone Sub, it just doesn't fit because the dominant 7 doesn't fit in any modes (at least the ones I know of [I'm approaching it from the perspective of Modal Interchange]). Could you go more in-depth as to what scale/mode the Tritone Sub comes from? This has boggled my mind for years now
Hey man, thanks for the comment. Typically a tritone sub is played as a 7#11 chord and the common scale you can use over that is the Lydian Dominant mode. Which is the fourth mode of the melodic minor scale. R 2 3 #4(#11) 5 6 b7 (same as a mixolydian but with a #4. Hope that helps.
Enjoyed your tutorial. Tritones add up to 6 when considering one in sharps and the other in flats. C is zero flats. F# is 6 sharps. A second example is D is 2 sharps. A flat is 4 flats. So D and A flat are tritones of each other. I enjoy using Db, G7, C with the Db, B, C on top respectively. Tritones are also the most distant and unrelated keys to each other. It can be challenging to modulate between them. And yes, I tend to think more in flats than sharps. F# and Gb are the same scale, but I’d much rather read it and play it as 6 flats than 6 sharps. Thanks for an awesome tutorial.
Very timely for me. A 50s jazz guitar book by Mickey Baker substituted a tritone right out of the gate that had me puzzled because he called it a D13b5b9 but the bass root was Ab. Thanks to you, it makes sense.
I'm a horn player getting my theory together and this was super helpful! I was about to ask about what scale works over the Tritone sub and you saved it for last lol Thank you Michael!
Hey Greg. Glad this was helpful. I can't quite remember what I said in the video but you have some options for scales and kind of depends on how you voice it. You could use a standard mixolydian but a really common one is the Lydian Dominant (Fourth mode of melodic minor), especially is you're playing at as a 7#11. 👍
This is great stuff, and you make it so clear and concise. However, I have a simple question for you about the correct way to write the tritone for in sheet music I've seen the enharmonic of the chord C# instead of D flat. Also, the little mnemonic is a half a tone above, tritone sub. When reading sheet music.
Thanks Calvin! Appreciate the comment and glad you enjoyed the video. I'm not sure there is necessarily a right or wrong of writing the chord symbol, although I would say that there are more common ways of doing things. Someone is likely to be more used to seeing/reading/thinking Eb7 rather than D#7, Db7 rather than C#7 or Bb7 rather than A#7 so you're best off writing as something that's easier to process for the musician. Hope that helps!
Yes... great pace Michael. I also thought it a bit funny.. when you referenced you may get some overdue respect or credit/ compliment from a bandmate...
Have known tritone substitution for years, but until this video had never realised that the dom7 and tri-sub share both 3rd and 7th… Completely obvious of course when you show it (around the 3:00 mark), but it somehow had always escaped me. Thx for that.
Awesome, glad the video was useful. I think it's pretty common that musicians are using devices like this on the regular but not necessarily knowing why they work - I'm not sure how much difference it makes knowing why though! 😂
so well explained and loved your humour !! would love a video on minor7b5 chords, i supposed we should play the half diminished scales on those ? (at least that's what i do aha)
Thanks Lucas! Half diminished chords are somewhere on my list of future videos. Yes, half-diminished scale (locrian #2) or just plain locrian. I guess like most things context is key. Cheers for your comment. 👍
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. I talk a bit about chord scale theory and improvisation in my video 'modes part II': ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZnD5F6o7B1g.html Hopefully that might help a bit. 👍
I would absolutely love a video on the melodic minor scale. I hear jazz musicians talk about it all the time, and you’ve mentioned modes of the scale, but I don’t understand in what context to use it and over what chords to use it over. Over a V7 chord? Over a minor chord? Cheers.
Superb the way you integrate graphics with the explanation makes it crystal clear. Not all teachers can communicate the stuff they know... best video on Tritone Substitution that I've seen, and I've watched a lot!
I like creating new moods built on mathematical relationships. How do we can creat more new spaces by using unknown notes? I mean the notes in smaller fractions of tone and semitone. In your opinion Mr Keithson how do you think about Iranian traditional music and Indians music?
Hey Shahab, thanks for your comment. I can't really speak to your question unfortunately, I've never explored that area of music 😔. My experience in music is nearly completely related to the types of music I have performed in various settings, I've never studied any traditional Iranian or Indian music. Maybe one day though!
You are an excellent music teacher!!!! Music can be a puzzle but you have the gift to clearly teach the parts of the puzzle and then demonstrate how these pieces fit together for the student to understand the bigger picture. Thank you so very much for sharing your knowledge with all of us.
Years ago, I asked a University of Georgia music professor to analyze Allan Holdsworth's "Spokes". He said the song uses tritone substitution to build tension and reward the listener with resolution. I appreciate hearing your breakdown and demonstration.
Flats on piano are more natural(no pun intended) to me too. But Ive often wondered if that might somehow be attributed to my playing of brass instruments.
Someone made a good point that I've spent a fair bit of my time over the years playing jazz repertoire which tends to be in flat keys so it may be just my comfort zone due to familiarity and exposure. Thanks for the comment 👍
Bro, I am a musician/composer who went to University of Michigan music school for my undergrad, have been around a lot of educators and musicians, and I f*ckin love you brother. Your attitude and style are what I would want every music educator to be like...explaining things to beginners and also still being relevant to advanced musicians at the same time. I have recently at my old age decided I want to become as expert as I can at formulating amazing progressions in the jazz style, (which also helps so much with the other composition I do) and I finally opened up one of my STILL BRAND NEW in the plastic wrap text books, the Mark Levine Jazz Piano book and came across your channel and it feels like one of my old practice sessions with one of the coolest T.A.'s back in my college days (1990-94) up at the music school, and I miss those days so much being older now. I have been recently over the last year or so really been looking back at my life and seeing how many years I have wasted and wish I could go back and do it all over again and take advantage of time that we will never get back, and do it the RIGHT way. Anyway, you are giving me a bit of that experience that I miss, back again, just being who you are in the way you explain things and how you teach music Thank you for this channel, man. (I had to add a small part: One of my old music theory professor assistants would do exactly what you just did 😂😂 he would ask me a question that he and I both KNEW that I should absolutely have the correct answer for, and then slightly sit in toward me and look at me, with a concerned, somewhat stern look, and wait for ne to provide the answer, and ONLY the correct answer. and you just did that same thing in part of this video 😆😆)
🙏 John, thank you so much for your comment. It’s great to read messages like yours. I’m so pleased that you feel that way about my videos, thanks for sharing the love. Dude, I feel the same, wish I could go back and re-do my time. I wasted so much potential but I’m now trying to build something new with the channel. It’s never too late. You got this. Thanks for the kind comment man. 🙏
Thank you for this insightful video on tritone substitutions! 🎶 Your explanations are clear and helpful, making it easier to understand and apply these concepts in my own playing. The detailed breakdown and examples are much appreciated. Keep up the great work.
