Tritones in left hand

Simplifying Left Hand Chord Shapes

You can simplify the left hand chord shapes that you played in Rootless Blues by just playing the bottom two notes.

G7 Chord

• Instead of playing G7 like this, you could get rid of the D.
• You're left with F and B, which are the seventh and third of the chord.

These two notes are three tones apart, and that's why we can call them a tritone.

The Magic of the Tritone

• This is a magic interval.
• When you invert it (play B and F instead of F and B), it's still three tones.
• That's a unique interval; no other interval stays the same when you invert it.

This has the magic property of meaning that when we go to C, we can just go down a semitone.

Moving to C9

Instead of playing C9 like we did before, we leave the D out again, and that's right next door to where you were.

• We're playing now E and B flat, which is the third and seventh.
• So we're going from G like this to C like that.

These are rootless, of course, because we're playing with the backing track, and the roots are on the backing track.

Transitioning Between Chords

• Just remember to go to the IV chord: you can move the tritone down a semitone.
• When you want to go to the V chord, guess what? You can move up a semitone.

So that's like the D7 chord we played before without the D.

• We're now back to playing third and seventh, just like we did on C.
• But this time we've gone up a semitone.

How Cool Is That?

You can play those shapes without even looking once you get used to them because you're hardly moving at all.

Review and Improvise

You could now review your solo in Rootless Blues.

• Try adding the blue fifth as an optional extra to your minor pentatonic improv.
• Also play the tritones in the left hand as an alternative to the three note shapes.

Next Tune: Sing and Play

The next tune, Sing and Play number three, also uses tritones, but will be in the key of C, playing C, F, and G.

• In the right hand, we're going to explore a new scale, the BIII pentatonic.