Editing Tritone (section)

=== Resolution ===
{{thumb|content=<score sound="1">
      \new Staff <<
         \new Voice \relative c' {
             \clef treble \key c \major \time 4/4
             \stemUp b'2 c f e
             }
         \new Voice \relative c' {
             \clef treble \key c \major \time 4/4
             \stemDown f2 e \bar "||" b' c \bar "||"
             }
            >>
</score>}}
In all of the sonorities mentioned above, used in functional harmonic analysis, the tritone pushes towards resolution, generally resolving by [[step (music)|step]] in [[contrary motion]]. This determines the resolution of chords containing tritones.

The augmented fourth resolves outward to a minor or major sixth (the first measure below). The inversion of this, a diminished fifth, resolves inward to a major or minor third (the second measure below). The diminished fifth is often called a tritone in modern [[tonal music|tonal]] theory, but functionally and notationally it can only resolve inwards as a diminished fifth and is therefore not reckoned a tritone—that is, an interval composed of three adjacent whole tones—in mid-[[renaissance]] (early 16th-century) music theory.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bent |first1=Margaret |title=Accidentals, Counterpoint and Notation in Aaron's ''Aggiunta'' to the ''Toscanello in Musica'' |journal=Journal of Musicology |date=1994 |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=306–344 [308] |doi=10.2307/764089|jstor=764089 }}</ref>