Bitonality: License to Play In Two Keys At Once (Playing Outside)

Playing outside is a higher dimension of playing.

I’m sure you’ve heard musicians play weird and outside the box ideas? Well, that’s not totally what outside playing is all about. Playing Outside is not only about thinking outside the box. It’s about removing the box altogether.

Have you heard musicians (mostly jazz) play things that are way beyond convention, abstract and sometimes confusing? Sometimes, it makes you want to believe they are just playing notes randomly. However, what they’re doing is far from random and that’s the beauty of it. It’s abstract and intentional.

Several years ago, I had a misconception of what playing outside actually was. I thought that playing outside was about touching chromatic tones with randomness and unpredictability. There were times when I’d try it and succeed. And everybody would call me “bad” (as in “good,” of course). But that’s really not what playing outside is.

Playing outside involves several outside the box principles that will eventually take you to a point where you will think like there’s no box. One of the principles we’re going to cover in this lesson is bitonality – one of several outside the box concepts you’ll now have at your disposal.

The Box – Tonality

The best way to start this outside the box lesson is to make you realize that there’s a box and also show you where it is. This box is called tonality or key. Don’t get me wrong, tonality is good. It has a way of creating a key center by generating an attraction towards a particular note.

For beginners, intermediate and pre-advanced players, exploring tonal ideas is captivating. However, for the advanced player who is probably tired of the conventional way of doing this, he or she is desirous of thinking outside the box or better yet, thinking like there’s no box.

Someone once said: “Learn the rules, then break the rules.”

Tonality locks you in a seven-sided box. In the concept of tonality, there are seven principal notes. Other notes are called chromatic (which means colorful) notes. Tonality creates an illusion that outside these seven notes is like traveling to space.

Bitonality unlocks the box. Imagine the tonal freedom that will be yours to know that you can safely go outside the seven established conventional sides of the box. Outside the box here refers to a foreign or related tonality. With bitonality, you can travel to space and come back to the earth safely. Yes!

Most people have been locked so long in tonality that they are afraid of trying bitonality. It’s my desire to unshackle you from tonality and show you how you can play outside.

Bitonality – Definition

Bitonality simply means [being in] two tonalities [at once]. Bi – 2 | tonality – key centers.

Bitonality is the process of playing in two key centers at once. I know you’re probably wondering how it’s possible to be in more than one key at once. Well, you’ll see, step-by-step, how we can play in two key centers at once. Bitonality is pretty much like having two tonal centers around the box.

Inside the box: Tonality has already created a box. Playing inside is the conventional way of sticking to the 7 notes of the key.

Outside the box: This is a related or foreign tonality that is outside the box (prevalent key).

There are different perspectives to bitonality. There are different principles as well in both traditional and popular music styles. However, our focus in this lesson is on bitonality from the perspective of the tritone progression and how we can use it to create an inside vs outside effect while playing.

Tritone Progression – Definition

An octave is naturally divisible into 12 equal parts. The octave of C:

…has 12 different parts:

Each part is what we call a “semitone progression.” The tritone is a melodic progression that divides an octave into two equal parts. If we divide an octave into 2 parts, each part will have 6 semitone progressions.

A tritone progression from C is F# (or G♭). Therefore the melodic progression between the notes below are a tritone progression.

Now that we’ve understood what a tritone progression means, let’s look at the bitonal perspectives of the tritone progression.

Bitonal Perspectives Of The Tritone

Our goal with the tritone progression is to build another tonality on it. Considering that F# and G♭ are a tritone progression from C, we can build tonality on F# or G♭ and play simultaneously in both keys. In this case, C is the inside and G♭ or F# is the outside.

Inside

Outside

OR

In this light, we can use two scale tones for every scale-degree – one from the inside and one from the outside. Here’s a bitonal view of scale degrees in the key C:

Same thing can be applied to all the major keys.

Below is a chart inside and outside keys:

From the chart above,

• ALL F♯ or G♭ scale tones can be used on C as scale tones and vice-versa.
• ALL G scale tones can be used on C♯ or D♭ as scale tones and vice-versa.
• ALL G♯ or A♭ scale tones can be used on D as scale tones and vice-versa.
• ALL A scale tones can be used on D♯ or E♭ as scale tones and vice-versa.
• ALL A♯ or B♭ scale tones can be used on E as scale tones and vice-versa.
• ALL B scale tones can be used on E♯ or F as scale tones and vice-versa.

Bitonality is Theoretically Related

The relationship between these two tonalities is an important one in Jazz and Classical music. Here’s how it works. Disregarding spelling, C Dom7th and G♭ Dom7th have something in common.

C Dom7th

F♯ Dom7th

If the skeleton (3^rd and 7^th) of each dominant chord is played, we’ll have:

C Dom 7^th

F♯ Dom 7^th

Disregarding spelling, the skeleton of C Dom7th and that of F♯ Dom7th are one and the same.

C Dom 7^th

F♯ Dom 7^th

The skeleton of C Dom 7^th above is also the skeleton of F♯ Dom 7^th. It can be seen as the third and seventh of C Dom 7^th or as the 7^th and 3^rd of F♯ Dom 7^th.

Let’s see how this equivalence works.

A 2-5-1 progression in the key of F is basically a movement of chords from G to C to F.

The common practice is G minor > C Dom 7^th > F Major.

However, C Dom 7^th can be substituted with F♯ Dom 7^th. This will yield a chromatic progression:

G minor > F♯ Dom 7^th > F Major

If we switch perspectives, we can graduate from seeing this as a substitution to seeing it as bitonality.

Bitonality in F will involve two keys – F and B (its tritone). If we look carefully at G minor > F♯ Dom 7^th > F Major from the bitonality standpoint, we’ll see:

G minor is chord #2 in F major… Inside.

F♯ Dom 7^th is chord #5 of B major… Outside.

F Major is Chord #1 in F major… Inside.

Bitonality® is powered by Tritone Substitutions®.

Bitonality is Practically Abstract

A closer look at the major scales of F♯ and C will show how foreign they are from each other.

C major:

F♯ major:

Without regard to spelling, the major scales of C and F♯ share only two notes in common – B and F (and these notes are a tritone progression).

The remaining 5 tones of each tonality are pentatonic scales. If F and B are removed from the major scales of C and F♯, we’ll have two pentatonic scales:

• F♯ Pentatonic
• C Pentatonic

Have you ever imagined playing F♯ pentatonic over C Dom 7^th? (Yeah! I’m beginning to take your mind outside the box aka – “tonality” of C):

Those notes are foreign right? But that’s the idea of going outside. Without regard for spelling, we can see 80% of the notes of this outside pentatonic as altered extensions of the C Dom 7^th:

D♭ is the ♭9 extension:

D♯ is the ♯9 extension:

G♭ is the ♭5 extension:

G♯ is the ♯5 extension:

Do you need an altered sound? Do you need to beef up your dominant 7^th chord? Then, embrace bitonality from the perspective of the tritone. These altered tones will give you that abstract tinge you’re looking for. Moving from outside to inside or vice-versa is only a half-step away.

Bitonality is Musical Freedom

For cyclical (or circular) progressions, bitonality offers you freedom and harmonic sophistication as a reward for your adventure. For every cyclical progression, the choice of being inside or venturing outside is at your discretion. However, endeavor to end on the inside.

2-5-1 progression in F

The harmonic destination is to chord #1 (which I recommend that you stay inside).

Here are three variations for taking your 2-5-1 progression outside.

Variation 1 – Inside, Outside, Inside

• G min9 is chord #2 in F major… Inside.
• F♯ Dom7 [♯9, ♯5] is chord #5 of B major… Outside.
• F Maj9 is chord #1 in F… Inside (recommended).

Variation 2 – Outside, Outside, Inside

• C♯ Dom7 [♯9, ♯5] is chord #2 of B major… Outside.
• F♯ Dom7 [♯9, ♯5] is chord #5 of B major… Outside.
• F Maj9 is chord #1 in F major… Inside (recommended).

Variation 3 – Outside, Inside, Inside

• C♯ Dom7 [♯9, ♯5] is chord #2 of B major… Outside.
• C Dom13 add9 is chord #5 in F major… Inside

.

• F Maj9 is chord #1 in F major… Inside (recommended).

So you can play a longer progression like the 7-3-6-2-5-1-4 progression.

• 7 – outside or inside,
• 3 – outside or inside,
• 6 – outside or inside,
• 2 – outside or inside,
• 5 – outside or inside,
• 1 – outside or inside,
• then 4 – inside (compulsory).

Whatever the case, let your harmonic destination end on the inside. There are exceptions to this guide once you master bitonality effectively.

Final Words

Bitonality offers you the tonal freedom of departing from the conventional 7-sided box you are locked in to have a feel of foreign and related tonalities.

With bitonality, you can make a cyclic progression exciting by playing inside or outside and even combining the two at your discretion and to the utmost surprise of your listeners. However, don’t forget to make your destination an inside chord (unless you can handle the outcome, or the situation demands you end outside). There are memorable moments you can create with outside playing – especially when you end outside. You’ll get everyone to believe that you are a bad cat. If you don’t do it appropriately, you’ll sound like an amateur player who played the wrong chord. You can take the risk of ending outside or stick to the safest – inside.

Thank you very much. We’re not done yet with playing outside. I’ll return with another concept on side-stepping shortly. I’ll be waiting outside the box til’ then.

P.S.

The basic chord quality used in this perspective to bitonality is the dominant chord. This doesn’t mean that other chord qualities cannot be used. However, as a basic introduction to bitonality, dominant chords will serve as effective guides. Being effective in other chord qualities is just a matter of time.

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Chuku Onyemachi

Head of Education at HearandPlay Music Group

Onyemachi "Onye" Chuku is a Nigerian musicologist, pianist, and author. Inspired by his role model (Jermaine Griggs) who has become his mentor, what he started off as teaching musicians in his Aba-Nigeria neighborhood in April 2005 eventually morphed into an international career that has helped hundreds of thousands of musicians all around the world. Onye lives in Dubai and is currently the Head of Education at HearandPlay Music Group and the music consultant of the Gospel Music Training Center, all in California, USA.

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Tagged as: bitonality, outside playing, playing outside, tritone bitonality, tritone progression