The sound that we consider to be contemporary gospel is made up of many chords that have tritones in them.

A Tritone is theoretically an augmented 4th or a deminished 5th.  For example if you where playing the C major scale the notes would be CDEFGABC

C is the first note and F is the fourth note. Therefore when you play the two notes C and F at the same time you are playing a perfect fourth.

But a tritone is an augmented fourth so you have to raise the fourth note up one half step. So a tritone would be C and F#. It also could be a deminished 5th which would be C and Gb.

HOW DO I USE IT?

There are many ways to use tritones.

Commonly they are used in altered dominant chords. For example G7#5#9, Ab7b9.

Usually you play the tritone with your left hand and the extentions of the chord with your right hand.

The tritone gives you alternatives to what type of dominant 7 chord to play.

You can change the extentions in your right hand and get a whole new sound and chord that will work.

If you are familiar with tritones then you know what I mean. If not you can get the dvd

Learn To Play The Hammond Organ or

Learn A Neo -Soul And Jazz Approach.

These techniques are explained.

How do I figure out the tritone.

Say for example you are playing an Ab dominant 7 chord which is

Ab C Eb Gb 

Ab is the root of the chord

Whatever the root of the chord is you play the b7 and major 3rd.

In the case of Ab the tritone would be Gb and C.

Once you figure out the tritone then you add your extentions.

One little trick I learned is to play certain major triads over the tritones and it creates different kinds of altered dominant chords.

For example if I want to find another chord for the Ab dominat seven I can figure out the tritone and play that with my left hand.

Then I can add the number 2 major triad, b5 major triad, #5 major triad, 6 major triad

on top of the tritone with your right hand.

In the example of Ab dominant 7

With your left hand you would play Gb and C

Right hand you could play the major 2 triad which is Bb major

The number 2 in the Ab major scale is Bb so therefore the major 2 triad would be a Bb major chord

So I would play a Bb major triad over the Gb and C with my left hand.

Try these alternatives for your dominant seven chords. We will get deeper a little later.

If all of this stuff sounds like chinese to you and you want to be able to do it you should get either The Hammond Organ DVD or The Neo Soul DVD

www.hmpi.net

Be Blessed,

Kenny Hollins