How to Use a Tritone Substitution – 6 Easy Guitar Licks

Tritone Substitution - 6 Easy Guitar Licks

What’s a Tritone Substitution?

The tritone substitution is one of the most common substitution found in jazz. The basic application of a tritone chord substitution is to take any 7th chord and play another 7th chord that has its root a tritone away from the original. This guitar lesson demonstrates how you can play scales and arpeggios starting from the b5 (a tritone away) of the V7 chord in a II V I chord progression. This way you will highlight altered tones as the b9 and the #11.

Let’s take a C major II V I chord progression Dm7 | G7 | CM7 | % | After applying a tritone substitution to the V7 chord of a II V I chord progression, we get the following sequence Dm7 | Db7 | CM7 | % | The idea behind is to play Db over G7. Here are some examples :

How to Solo Over Tritone Substitution?

Four options are addressed in this lesson :

The first is to play a dominant 7 arpeggio (1 – 3 – 5 – b7) starting on the b5 of the V7 chord. Here is what happens when you play Db7 over G7 :

The root of Db7 highlights the #11/b5 of G7.
The third (F) of Db7 is the b7 of G7.
The fifth (Ab) of Db7 highlights the b9 of G7.
The minor seventh (B) of Db7 is the third of G7.

The second option is to play a dominant 9 arpeggio (1 – 3 – 5 – b7 – 9) which means that you have to add the ninth to the previous dom7 arpeggio.

The ninth (or second) of Db7 (Eb) highlights the b13 of G.

The third option consists in playing a major pentatonic scale (1 – 2 – 3 – 5 – 6).

The root of Db7 highlights the #11/b5 of G7.
The second of Db7 (Eb) highlights the b13 of G.
The third (F) of Db7 is the same note as the b7 of G7.
The fifth (Ab) of Db7 is the b9 of G7.
The sixth (Bb) of Db7 should be used as an approach note in order to target a chord tone

The fourth option to solo with a tritone sub is to use the Mixolydian mode (1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – b7). It has the same note as the major pentatonic scale with a fourth (4/11) and a seventh (7).

The fourth of Db7 (Gb) must be treated as an approach note.
The seventh of Db7 (B) is the third of G7.

Bar 1 : Dm7 arpeggio (D – F – A – C)
Bar 2 : Descending Db7 arpeggio (Db – F – A – Cb)
Bar 3 : CM7 arpeggio (C – E – G – B)

Tritone Substitution

Tritone Substitution Lick # 2

Bar 1 : D minor pentatonic scale. (D – F -G – A – C ) C is not played.

Bar 2 : Db major pentatonic scale (Db – Eb – F – Ab – Bb). Bb is not played.

Playing Db pentatonic over G7 chord provides some interesting colors:

Db is the #11 of the G7 chord.
Eb is the b13 of G7.
F is the minor 7th of G7.
Ab is the b9 of G7 .
Bar 3 : C major pentatonic scale (C – D – E – G – A). A is not played.

Tritone Substitution

Tritone Substitution Lick # 3

Measure 1 : D minor 9 arpeggio (D – F – A – C – E)

Measure 2 : Db9 descending arpeggio (Eb – Cb – Ab – F – Db)

Playing Db9 arpeggio on G7 highlights the following tones :

Db is the #11 of the G7 chord.
F is the minor 7th of G7.
Ab is the b9 of G7 .
Cb is the major third of G7.
Eb is the b13 of G7.

Measure 3 : C Major arpeggio (C – E – G) ending with a fourth intervals (A – D) and a major third (G and B)

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Tritone Substitution Lick # 4

Measure 1 : Dorian mode (D – E – F – G – A – B) B is not played.
Measure 2 (second half of the beat 2) : Db7b9 arpeggio (Db – F – Ab – Cb – D)
Measure 3 : Ending on the root of CM7.

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Tritone Substitution Lick # 5

Measure 1 : Dm9 arpeggio (D – F – A – C – E)
Measure 2 : Db9 arpeggio (Eb – Cb – Ab – F – Db) and chromaticism to approach the root of CM7.
Measure 3 : Ending with two chords CM7 and C6/9.

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Tritone Substitution Lick # 6

Measure 1 : D Dorian bebop (D – E – F – F# – G – A – B – C). The Dorian bebop scale is the Dorian mode with a passing tone.
Measure 2 : Db7 mixolydian mode ( Db – Eb – F – Gb – Ab – Bb – Cb).
Measure 3 : C major arpeggio (C-E-G) and C major scale ending on a C69 arpeggio (C-A-D-G).

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