TRITONE Substitution Vs AUGMENTED 6th: What's The Difference? [Music Theory]
Вставка
- Опубліковано 23 тра 2021
- Complete Chord Mastery course: www.musictheoryforguitar.com/...
Master of the Modes course: www.musictheoryforguitar.com/...
When I started publishing videos on UA-cam I did not know what to expect. From when my channel went semi-famous, some weird thing started to happen.
Here's one that I still find puzzling...
Every video I publish, on any music theory topic...
... literally, it does not matter what I'm talking about...
... someone (a different person every time) comments:
"This is just the Tritone Substitution, right?"
No!
The thing is... 98% of my videos are NOT about the Tritone Substitution. Not even a little bit.
You know what they say... if all you have is a hammer, the world looks like a bag of nails.
And if all you know is the Tritone Substitution, all music looks like Tritones and Substitutions...
(If you are one of these people - don't worry, it's not your fault, and I can help you. Reply to this email and we'll go from there. It's my civic duty as your friendly neighbour music theorist)
But then again, even a broken clock is right twice a day, right? :-)
So recently I posted a few videos on Augmented 6th chords... and as expected they all got the comment:
"Aren't these just the Tritone Substitution?"
Well... this time... yes.
Actually... mmmh... yes and no. But mostly yes.
("Wow Tommaso, you are really making an effort to be clear today, aren't you?")
The thing is... yes, the chords I explain in the videos are both Augmented 6th chords and Tritone Substitutions
And no... not all Augmented 6th are Tritone Substitutions... and vice versa. Today's video shows you the very simple difference between them.
But even if you don't care at all about the difference, in this video I'm making several examples of sweet sweet sounding chords that you can lift and use in your music as they are.
So come for the cool sounds... and stay because I finally clarify two of the most controversial ideas in music theory.
If you like this video, share, like, comment & don't forget to subscribe for more content!
Need help with music theory for guitar? Check out these FREE resources: www.musictheoryforguitar.com/...
FOLLOW ME:
UA-cam: / musictheoryforguitar
Facebook: / musictheoryforguitar
Twitter: / theoryguitar
Website: musictheoryforguitar.com
As someone who has been obsessed with harmony for the last 4 years and who doesn't even play guitar, I LOVE your way of explaining this stuff. I watched a ton of music theory channel and I would say you are my favorite along side Music Corner.
A great video as usual! :)
I remember the first time I learned of augmented 6th chords I was immediately like "This is a so much better explanation than having everything be tritone substitutions" and went to town with experimenting on all kinds of ways to apply them :)
What comes to non-standard "chords", (I'm starting to prefer the word harmony more and more as opposed to chords) there are some really neat non-standard harmonies if you start with a diminished 7th resolving to a perfect 5th and fill in all the notes :)
My composition teacher gave me some Bach to analyze, and I came across one really “weird” chord. It seemed similar to a tritone sub... but it was spelled “wrong”. That was my introduction to augmented 6 chords. The very first time I put one in a composition, it sounded instantly familiar. I’d heard that sound countless times listening to Beethoven and friends...
The videos you did on the augmented 6 chords were great. Your explanation gave them a context that I was previously missing and demystified them in a very good way.
I'm going to go over to the corner and play with some blocks...
That sounds like fun. ^-^
Conrad Cork's Harmony With Lego Bricks?
Short answer: "Well, yes... but actually no, but it seems like yes, but they are not".
PS: Loved the video and have learned something really cool.
Accurate :)
By the way, I literally stopped my music theory class for like 5 minutes one time in college (2009) because I came from a Jazz program (transferred) into a classical program, and the turtleneck-wearing theory teacher made a comment that these two chords were the same thing while we were learning our augmented 6th chords.
Truly only a jazz player who knew the tendencies of tritone substitutions within jazz could make an argument against.
This video was great and not too hard to understand. One thing about point #1 is that it seems to focus on the intent of the composer to distinguish the two, which shouldn't really be a part of musical analysis. The focus should be on the listener's experience.
My favorite reason was the fact that in Classical music, these chords typically resolve, whereas in jazz they are less likely to resolve. Often times a tritone sub is just another flavor of the same key before a key change since keys change so quickly. So functionally it has different tendencies. In addition they are typically played *over* the original dominant chord and often "substituted" by only the soloist or someone playing "out" instead of being a vehicle for the entire orchestra.
It feels sort of like saying a bicycle is a motorcycle because it has two wheels and you sit on it and hold handlebars while going fast. The jazz player will say "where's the engine"
Very interesting. I think too the third reason is the best one.
Thank you for the video, Tommaso!
The Venn diagram is great!
Outstanding lesson AND a masterfully delivered argument in support of your position! 👏🏼
5:22 Apparently many jazz theorists have an extremely myopic and or biased view of music history.
Jazz was created from the blues mostly, but also from (I find this highly amusing in this context) classical music. But also from country, bluegrass and many of the oodles and oodles of various forms of music from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Yes it was something new, but so were all of the styles it came from as well. Music is a journey, not an end result.
Shhh don't say that too loud or we are never going to hear the end of it... ;-)
@@MusicTheoryForGuitar : Omg, you're right! My bad. lols
I’ve learned a lot from watching your vids and it’s thank to you for being such a great content creator 👍🏼
I was hoping you would make a video about this. Thank you!
this reminds me of my music theory teacher some 30 years ago, when he said "there are no such things as chords nor notes..." and burnt my brain back then...
It's really simple.
In practice, these two things have totally different tendencies. Also tritone subs are quite often played *over* the original dominant chord whereas in classical music the augmented 6th is most often carried by the entire orchestra.
Thank you so much for this. It came at exactly the right time in my learning and explains a lot that has been recently confusing me. I much prefer to really understand a small number of fundamental principles (and sometimes their historical derivation) than many disparate examples. And this video helped the two different principles of Aug6 and tritone subn to "click" in by brain. The Venn diagram with Ab7 in the middle was the key.
And then I got excited about your Chord Mastery course. Would I go for it?? "Well yes, ... but actually no" :-)
I am attempting to learn many aspects of composition, but I am a keyboard player - not a guitar player. I suspect that your mastery won't translate enough away from guitar.
I feel that my music theory knowledge is pretty solid, but this made my brain hurt.
Ciao Tommaso, thanks for the awesome explanation!
Any chance you would know some examples of songs in the jazz or popular repertoire that call for the augmented sixth sound specifically and not the tritone sub?
Almost 13 minutes. You know Tommaso was going deeeeep into some theory!
I thought that the tritone was the four and when you went from the F sharp to the sea that’s like going to the b5 or is the #4 considered a tritone as well?
ua-cam.com/video/XwmOlpbfpsM/v-deo.html
Do someone think about it when composing?
Good explanation master, as usual!
Maybe I should let the guitar aside and grab a pencil, right?
In the context of the following progression (Bm -Em -G7 -F#7) is the G7 a tritone substitution or an augmented 6th?
Depends. How the voice leading? (see the video)
@@MusicTheoryForGuitar G B F (G7) to F# Bb E (F#7)
It's both.
Tritone sub! Because we're surrounded by *dominant* chords, which is a keystone of jazz.
At D7 and Aflat7 why it have C ? Not C sharp ?
Hi
Hello ^-^
I know how to create an augmented 6th chord and a tri-tone sub according to my knowledge, but my main question is Why in the heck is the augmented 6th chord called an augmented 6th chord since the name doesn't imply that in the name at all it seems, you even said it's an altered 4th chord.
The confusion comes from the fact that you are interpreting "augmented 6th" as "the 6th chord of the key" when instead the 'augmented 6th' is an interval between two notes in the chord.
@@MusicTheoryForGuitar AHHH, gotcha, I'm glad you cleared that up!
I spent a good while working out and understanding Aug6th chords a while ago but honestly unless your goal is to mimic the sound found in classical very specifically it’s not worth differentiating between the two.
This is an example of when I don’t feel the theory difference is useful in composing for 99% of people.
Actually, the difference that I explain is EXTREMELY useful. Have you seen the last part of the video where I show how these two ideas generate different sounds?
I've got a couple of classical music degrees, numerous dip.lomas, including one in Jazz Piano. I really feel this is all unnecessary, and just verbose! As a composer, too, I would say, 'Who cares?' Those of us who studied conventional harmony would never have got into such a convoluted argument. As for the 'Tristan' chord, he's not got this right either. Also he's very glib in altering the enharmonic names of notes, where this doesn't apply. For example, he talks about the chord of the Augmented 6th. In C, this has to be A flat to F sharp, as it has basically got to be the interval of a 6th. As we include both top and bottom notes when describing intervals, a 6th above A has to be F (A,B,C,D,E,F six notes inclusive. As it stands, A to F is a Minor 6th. Enlarge it by lowering the A to A flat, and it now becomes a Major 6th. Enlarge it once more by raising the F to F sharp, it is now an Augmented 6th. But if you were to call the F sharp by its enharmonic name of G flat, then the same-sounding interval would become a 7th (A-G inclusive). It would, in fact nowbe a Minor 7th. My second study at the RCM was Composition, and if my professor had tried to explain things as the video tries to, I think I would have changed to a different Second Study! The only think that does impress me, is that he's able to waffle on so fluently in presumably his second language. Now that is worth a Brownie point in my book! All quite unnecessary, I'd say! 🎹🎶
Most of this has to do with the fact that classical theory teachers want to say that it's the same, and none of the jazz theory teachers would ever say this. The reality is that these two chords are totally different, although they share about 70% of functionality. In classical theory this amounts to 100% of functionality. Within the jazz world, we have a lot more complex theory going on and we say "well no, this isn't quite accurate".
And it really just comes down to the fact that most classical teachers that say these two chords wish they played jazz, but are total squares. And so the jazz guys say "hey bro, you're not invited because you're a square". And in order to *not* be a square, one must realize those unrealized things that make them less square, whereas those unrealized things parallel exactly to those things which make these two chords totally different things.
i totally disagree with the way you explained the Ab7 as a augmented 6th chord. it makes not much sense to explain it as the IV chord of the key with an altered root and third and it's way to complicated to think like that. in theory it make more sense explained like this: It's rather a VII leading to the V (in the case of C it's F#dim7 leading to G7) but with a altered third a halfstep down. Then you get the F# as a logic leading tone. Tip: lowering any note in a VII gives you a dominant seventh which makes for cool tools:)
The Ab7 is clearly a substitute dominant (as I say), which is exactly equivalent to the explanation you give (the two dominant chords Ab7 and D7 are related to the same diminished chord, F#dim7, enharmonic to Cdim7).
But the Ab6+ is emphatically NOT a dominant chord in any sense of the word "Dominant". The only way to get an augmented 6th interval in that chord IS precisely to alter both the A to an Ab and the F to an F#. This is indeed not only the standard explanation, accepted for more than a couple centuries, but also the very origin of the name.