Tritone Substitution Explained for Jazz Piano - Once and For All

Here's this week's jazz piano question:

"Hi Julian, I used to have a jazz teacher who would often say 'just use Tritone Substitution', but he'd never explain what 'Tritone Substitution' actually meant. I wondered if you could explain it for me, once and for all!"

Yes, absolutely!

Tritone substitution is a type of reharmonization (which means to change the song's original chords)...

Tritone Substitution is a way of reharmonizing dominant 7 (V7) chords.

Key Point:

Tritone Substitution can be used anytime you see a V7 chord in the chord sheet. It means that instead of playing the V7 chord that's written, you transpose it up a tritone:

So if the music says 'C7' you would play F#7 instead (because F# is a tritone above C)
If the music says 'F7' you would play B7 instead (because B is a tritone above F)
If the music says 'D7' you would play Ab7 instead (because Ab is a tritone above D)

Recommended Lesson

'Rootless Chord Voicings for Jazz Piano'

If you only learn one type of chord voicing - learn this one:

Free Resource: Download my 'Jazz Piano Chord Voicing Guide'.

Transform your playing just by adding these chord voicings to your playing.

"Why Does This Sound So Good?"

When you substitute a V7 chord this way - the music sounds mostly the same...

Because the new V7 chord has 2 of the same notes as the original V7 chord, but it also has 2 different notes...

Let's say you see C7 in the chord sheet, but you play F#7 instead:

Both C7 and F#7 contain E and Bb (just ignore the different note spelling of A# / Bb):

Meanwhile, the other 2 notes shift by a half-step, and these are what create the new sophisticated sound of tritone substitution...

Free Resource: Download my 'Jazz Piano Chord Voicing Guide' (11 pages).

Let's Apply This To A 2-5-1

Tritone Substitution works best applied to the dominant 7 (V7) chord in the middle of a ii-V-I...

It works for both the major ii-V-I and the minor ii-V-i...

Let's apply Tritone Substitution to a ii-V-I in C major:

Instead of playing D min 7 - G7 - C major 7 - you would play this:

D min 7 (D F A C) - Db7 (Db F Ab B) - C maj 7 (C E G B)

Chromatic Bass Line

An easy way to apply tritone substitutiion to a 2-5-1 is simply to move the bass note down in half-steps - D - Db - C

All you have to do is play the ii chord as normal (D min 7)...

Then move the bass note down a half-step to the b2nd and play a V7 chord (Db7)...

Finally move the bass note down one more half-step and play a major 7 chord (C maj 7).

Tweaking the Melody

When you change the dominant 7 (V7) chord, you're also changing the scale that goes with it...

The scale you'd play over Db7 is different to the scale you'd play over G7 - and this means that sometimes you'll need to tweak the melody to fit with the new chord / scale...

Over Db7 I recommend playing Db lydian-dominant scale.

So after you tritone substitute the dominant 7 (V7) chord - check to see if the notes in the original melody fit with this new Lydian-Dominant scale...

If there are any notes that don't belong in the new scale - either sharpen them or flatten them...

There's no 100% rule whether you sharpen or flatten the notes. Just use your ear to decide which sounds better. It's different for every melody.

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