The mystical tritone

I’ve picked up some new guitar students lately, so I’m once again doing a lot of explaining what a tritone is and why people should care. Whenever I find myself explaining something a lot, I like to encapsulate it as a blog post. So here we go.

A tritone is the interval between the notes C and F-sharp. It’s also known as the flat fifth or sharp fourth. It’s two minor thirds, three whole steps, six half steps, or half an octave. On the piano, count six keys up or down. On guitar, count six frets.

The tritone is the heart of the entire western tonal system. The clearest way to define the key center of a piece of music is to look at how tritones create tension and resolve it. Tritones are also central to the sound of the blues and blues tonality, which form the basis of most of the music I like.

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