Songs that use Tritone Substitution

From Miles Davis to Britney Spears, from Girl From Ipanema to the Wii Shop Channel theme, Tritone subs can be found in many styles and, at first, tritone substitution can seem like an advance and complex concept. But really it's as simple as shifting your chord down 3 tones! There is so much potential with tritone subs and they can come in many shapes and sizes, so today let's learn more about how to tritone substitute!

SOURCES:

And, an extra special thanks goes to Chase Heeler, Peter Keller, Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇

0:00 Tritone Substitution
0:42 What is a Tritone sub?
3:57 Bossa Nova & Wii Shop
6:51 Pop song examples
9:06 HDpiano
9:52 Secondary Dominant Tritone Subs
11:10 Stevie Wonder
12:17 Luther Vandross & Burt Bacharach
13:26 Dream A Little Dream of Me
14:32 Oasis & Paul Weller
15:48 the rarest type of tritone sub
16:27 Jazz harmony
18:11 Piano Outro/Patreon

[luigiscazzari]

David is the music teacher that every school needs

[junkmail]

I love how consistent the visual style in your videos is... a David Bennett video is instantly recognizable

[sorviknight]

Billy Joel's song "Vienna" uses a kind of tritone sub at the end of the chorus, when it goes from C7 to F#7 to F7, and finally resolving to the tonic Bb

[kimandgumi]

Oh that's why it's called tritone substitution! I thought it was a lazy shifting in chords but now thanks to you I understand why I find those progression so satisfying. It hides cadences

[jameschristiansson]

"Will he mention Britney Spears' Toxic?" You bet he will.

[GizzyDillespee]

"Waiter! I think this isn't diet tonic"
"Sir... I poured it in front of you"
"What? No, I mean the music. How's my tritone sub coming along? Remember, extra cheese!"

[HughCoxx]

Bro, you're on fire!!! You're explanations cuts through ignorance like steel! :)

[thejohnsweeney]

David Bennett threw a chair at my head when we were in jazz school together.

[randellaustin]

This guys posts are so perfectly timed. I was literally just wondering about how different genres can use tritone subs, and boom, he posts this. Phenomenal!

[Qajaqsreal]

I would like to give some examples of Led Zeppelin songs that use Tritone substitution! Obviously Since I’ve Been Loving You uses the tritone of V, I’m Gonna Crawl actually uses the EXACT same progression as Dream a Little Dream of Me just without the dominant 7ths, and an early version of In The Light actually has the “Toxic” progression played on the clavinet with an Amin(or A major, it’s not really specified) to a C6 to a B7 to a Bbmaj#11!!

[plsaboia]

Great to see Brazilian music (Bossanova, in this case) featured in your channel! Love your videos!

[pensivepenguin]

Sweet. Can’t wait to try this out in my guitar playing. I’m in my 40s and have been playing guitar since 1995, and I think I’ve learned more in the past five years of watching YouTube videos about music than I did all those years before. I’m thrilled for kids just starting their music journeys in this climate of access to such great, free education. it will be killer to see what they do as they progress and start putting their music out into the world

[Sannahmusic]

This is the very magic of Bossa Nova! I'll try that out within short! Thank you for the video!

[michaeldmytriw]

What incredible connections. You are a glorious music teacher of the highest order

[strawberrymilkshakewithastraw]

This was a great lesson and really well explained! I honestly wonder how you can even find all those examples and with so much detail as well, you're really giving us whole backstories and history as well lol, really appreciate your effort put into these videos!

[amnesomniac]

YES!! Thank you! Tritone substitution has been kind of a cloudy area for me ever since I heard of it. 🙏

[LuisSantos-nfrs]

Excellent video about tritone subs, David! Many thanks.

[JeanWJoseph]

I enjoyed the video a lot. As always the material is just so clearly explained

[lawrencetaylor]

There is one Tritone Sub that David didn’t mention, and I used it in a song back in third grade music class with Miss Martin. It uses a tritone of a tritone. I called it “Fingernails on the Blackboard”.
She liked it so much she sent me to the Principals office and I got to transcribe it 100 times on said blackboard.

[TenorCantusFirmus]

According to Erno Lendvai, Bela Bartok (which was his teacher in composition) thought of any chord to be repleaceable by chords one minor third or tritone away from it: i.e., C (major or minor doesn't matter) with either A, Eb or F#. This can lead to all sort of tritone substitutions, and even beyond.