What is a tritone substitution?
Tritone substitution involves substituting for one dominant 7th chord another dominant 7th chord whose root is a tritone away from the original. The process is easiest to see with a few examples: In the key of C: |G7 / C / | becomes |Db7 / C /| As another example, in the key of Gb: |Db7 / Gb / | becomes |G7 / Gb / | Another reason why this is called tritone substitution is because both chords have common tones that create a tritone interval between their 3rd and 7th: G7 contains a tritone between B (3rd) and F (7th). Db7 contains a tritone between F (3rd) and Cb (7th). (Note that Cb is enharmonically equivalent to B.) The proper classical resolution of the tritone interval involves contrary motion, i.e. one note goes up the other goes down. In G7 to C … the B on the G7 chord moves up to C on the C chord, the F on the G7 chord moves down to E on the C chord. In Db7 to C … the Cb moves up to C (although a classical musician would call this note B, i.e. the #6 of a “Db augmented 6th”
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