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Understanding Tritone Substitutions
by John Mark Piper

To understand the basics of tritone substitutions and how they typically function is an important aspect of music. Having good command of them can help a musician's reading, hearing, performing and memorizing music.

This is a clip from the 1960's featuring Canadian jazz musician Don Thompson on vibes. Don is a quadruple threat on vibes, piano, bass and drums and plays them all with virtuosic aplomb. He started out as a bassist with the John Handy Quartet in San Francisco, though he was a professional by age 20. He did a long tenure with Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass, first as a percussionist, then as a bassist and finally as a pianist.

More on my Cherokee etude! It's soooo hard.

I'm going to turn it into an etude so some of you can be miserable! I wonder if it's easier with the Stevens grip? I'm working on it and it's getting better!

I decided to do a series of analysis of tunes.

I decided to call this series 'Pimp My Tune', and I think you could definitely call this 'Ghetto Analysis'. I did go to college, but I was interested in playing and learning off the street. What was great about that was I got a lot of interesting perspectives on tunes and harmony, from some great musicians. It was amazing that in school everything was made to seem difficult and on the street everything was made to seem easy. At least that's how I perceived it all.

Here's a tough mental challenge.

This is a pretty hard etude. At the time of writing this, I just stumbled on it. I had forgotten all about it. So I'll need to check it out again. I remember it though. It was for a students who was studying the blues.

I can easily post the midi file so you can get an idea, and then maybe myself or PATTY will learn it and we'll video it and put it up!

I don't have sticking on it yet. Just thought I'd post it for the advanced guys.

This is a really hard etude as I remember. I just stumbled on it.

(This is a piece I wrote and have named it after the great composer Vince Guaraldi. The lead sheet is here, as well as an etude where you can work on different aspects of solo playing.)

Here's part 2 of this lesson. Go to the lesson listed above for more info.

Try not to look at this pdf until you've done part one of this lesson. That was to take the lead sheet and try and figure out the chords to the tune.

When you're ready look here and if you got it.

In part 3 of this etude, I'll talk about the etude and play the tune for you.

Pivot Chords are a great way to work on key stuff. I got the idea from Bill Evans. I liked
the way he modulated different tunes and tried to make my own up. Here's how he
changes key at the end of Here's that Rainy Day.