Can someone please explain tritones?

From Wikipedia:
The tritone is a restless interval, classed as a dissonance in Western music from the early Middle Ages through to the end of the common practice period. This interval was frequently avoided in medieval ecclesiastical singing because of its dissonant quality. The first explicit prohibition of it seems to occur with

"the development of Guido of Arezzo's hexachordal system, which made B♭ a diatonic note, namely as the fourth degree of the hexachord on F. From then until the end of the Renaissance the tritone, nicknamed the diabolus in musica, was regarded as an unstable interval and rejected as a consonance by most theorists."[3]

The name diabolus in musica ("the Devil in music") has been applied to the interval from at least the early 18th century. Johann Joseph Fux cites the phrase in his seminal 1725 work Gradus ad Parnassum, Georg Philipp Telemann in 1733 notes, "'mi against fa', which the ancients called 'Satan in music'", and Johann Mattheson in 1739 writes that the "older singers with solmization called this pleasant interval 'mi contra fa' or 'the devil in music'".[4] Although the latter two of these authors cite the association with the devil as from the past, there are no known citations of this term from the Middle Ages, as is commonly asserted.[5] However Denis Arnold, in The New Oxford Companion to Music, suggests that the nickname was already applied early in the medieval music itself:

"It seems first to have been designated as a 'dangerous' interval when Guido of Arezzo developed his system of hexachords and with the introduction of B flat as a diatonic note, at much the same time acquiring its nickname of 'Diabolus in Musica' ('the devil in music')".[6]

Because of that original symbolic association with the devil and its avoidance, this interval came to be heard in Western cultural convention as suggesting an "evil" connotative meaning in music. Today the interval continues to suggest an "oppressive", "scary", or "evil" sound. However, suggestions that singers were excommunicated or otherwise punished by the Church for invoking this interval are likely fanciful. At any rate, avoidance of the interval for musical reasons has a long history, stretching back to the parallel organum of the Musica Enchiriadis. In all these expressions, including the commonly cited "mi contra fa est diabolus in musica", the "mi" and "fa" refer to notes from two adjacent hexachords. For instance, in the tritone B-F, B would be "mi", that is the third scale degree in the "hard" hexachord beginning on G, while F would be "fa", that is the fourth scale degree in the "natural" hexachord beginning on C.
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In other words, this guy built a career on it:
tonyiommi.jpg
 
its quite simple. i dont overthink tritones. i just think of it as a flat 5 of a note. It splits the octave evenly at the tritone.

the tritone is an interval that is prevalent in Dominant 7th chords. the 3rds and 7ths in a dominant 7th chord is a tritone interval with a bass note below.
 
Krish said:
its quite simple. i dont overthink tritones. i just think of it as a flat 5 of a note. It splits the octave evenly at the tritone.

the tritone is an interval that is prevalent in Dominant 7th chords. the 3rds and 7ths in a dominant 7th chord is a tritone interval with a bass note below.
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Probably the most concise explanation. :thu:
 
Krish said:
its quite simple. i dont overthink tritones. i just think of it as a flat 5 of a note. It splits the octave evenly at the tritone.

the tritone is an interval that is prevalent in Dominant 7th chords. the 3rds and 7ths in a dominant 7th chord is a tritone interval with a bass note below.
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I think of it this way, but for whatever reason I tend to associate the flat 5 usage with metal, and the Dom7th usage with blues.

One of the coolest and most common usages is the tritone as 3 and 7 in the I of a blues, and then flip the intervals to 7 and 3 for the IV by moving the form down 1/2 step, and then up 1 step for the V.

So, in an A blues, play C#(5th string, 4th fret) and G(4th string, 5th fret), which are the 3 and 7 of an A7 chord, and then move down one fret to C(5th string, 3rd fret) and F#(4th string, 4th fret) which are the 7 and 3 of a D7 chord.
 
Frank Prince - This sounds really cool. I'm gonna try it when I get home. I was thinking alone the lines of jazz and tritone substitution where you can substitute a tritone for the dom 5th. So if you're playing a ii V I in G, you can substitue a F# 7th #5 for the D7th. I'm referring to this chord. I hope I got the spelling correct. Why does this work.

E - X
B - 3
G - 3
D - 2
A - X
E - 2
 
I love that chord! I use it all the time. I like using it in a minor ii-V-i, where ii would be C#min7b5, V would be F#7#5, and i would be B min.

As far as why it works like you describe, I'm not real knowledgeable about all the jazz substitutions and secondary dominants and all that kind of thing, but it looks like the notes of that chord spell out D augmented with an added 9 if you switch them around, so maybe that's why it sounds right as a sub for D7.

Mark Wein or DolphinStreet or KrisH might know more about this.
 
paulowski said:
.......and here's me thinking it's three notes in a row.
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You're actually not too far off course thinking of that.

A 'tone' is the British term for 'whole-step.' (Semitone = half-step)

If you start on C, one tone higher is a D. Another tone after that is an E. A third tone more and you have F#. C to F# is the distance of three tones, or, a tritone.

And, as stated above, if you go a tritone above F#, you end up back on C again. Since an octave has 12 semitones, half an octave is 6 semitones, or 3 tones.
 
Seriously - this is a great place to hang out. Its a treasure of information. Thanks guys!

Frank - I tried both your moves and I really like them. The ii V i I'm really into. I had to go to all-guitar-chords.com to get some voicings though. Yeah I cheated! It sounds really Latin, yet more sophisticated than the regular "Santana" progression. Love it !
 
OK - this is probably the dumbest question ever, but if a tritone splits an octave into 2, why is it called a TRItone?

EDIT: OK, I missed Pops post a few above, now it's official, that was the dumbest question ever! :grin:
 
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