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  • Guitar Techniques

    Using the tritone

    Mar 11, 2020 4 minutes

    ABILITY RATING

    The tritone interval has attained notoriety for providing both dissonance and menace in music, at one point in history earning the title of ‘Diabolus in Musica’ (the devil in music). Constructed from the symmetrical distance of three tone spaces (literally tri-tones), this edgy musical formula is used in heavy rock music, milking the evil symbolism of recurring sixes (666) for all its worth. While this might be the obvious application for such a sound, what we’re exploring here today is the value of this intriguing interval in jazz music, along with its close relation, the blues.

    All of the examples today will be presented against a C root note, so the distance of three tone steps takes us to F#. Or does it? Remember

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