gene
707 posts
Mar 30, 2011
5:29 PM
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(Adam might be able to answer this question.)
I read this by Jason Ricci:
"The flat-5th was called by the classical musical community, or at that time THE music community, 'The Devil's Interval.' This was a religiously based term and religiously enforced law that prohibited its use at one time (circa 1700)."
How did a note-just a stinking NOTE- come to be associated with the devil to the point that it was at one time prohibited??!!
Last Edited by on Mar 30, 2011 5:29 PM
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JBharmonica
18 posts
Mar 30, 2011
5:39 PM
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The tritone is a restless interval, classed as a dissonance in Western music from the early Middle Ages through to the end of the common practice period. This interval was frequently avoided in medieval ecclesiastical singing because of its dissonant quality. The first explicit prohibition of it seems to occur with
the development of Guido of Arezzo's hexachordal system, which made B? a diatonic note, namely as the fourth degree of the hexachord on F. From then until the end of the Renaissance the tritone, nicknamed the diabolus in musica, was regarded as an unstable interval and rejected as a consonance by most theorists.[13]
The name diabolus in musica ("the Devil in music") has been applied to the interval from at least the early 18th century. Johann Joseph Fux cites the phrase in his seminal 1725 work Gradus ad Parnassum, Georg Philipp Telemann in 1733 notes, "mi against fa, which the ancients called "Satan in music", and Johann Mattheson in 1739 writes that the "older singers with solmization called this pleasant interval 'mi contra fa' or 'the devil in music'".[14] Although the latter two of these authors cite the association with the devil as from the past, there are no known citations of this term from the Middle Ages, as is commonly asserted.[15] However Denis Arnold, in the The New Oxford Companion to Music, suggests that the nickname was already applied early in the medieval music itself:
It seems first to have been designated as a "dangerous" interval when Guido of Arezzo developed his system of hexachords and with the introduction of B flat as a diatonic note, at much the same time acquiring its nickname of "Diabolus in Musica" ("the devil in music").
wikipedia
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JB
http://www.facebook.com/jbharmonica
jbustillos@gmail.com
Last Edited by on Mar 30, 2011 5:40 PM
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nacoran
3942 posts
Mar 30, 2011
5:54 PM
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Technically it's not one note, it's a combination of notes. It's said that if you play Justin Bieber backwards over the top of itself it will summon the devil.
Even more scarily, if you play 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' backwards over itself it will summon Justin Bieber.
Some related issues of tuning: (I've posted this link every time old time music comes up. I'm fascinated by how music works. :) )
The Wolf at Our Heels
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Nate
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Last Edited by on Mar 30, 2011 5:59 PM
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JBharmonica
19 posts
Mar 30, 2011
6:08 PM
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I personally love tritone substitutions...use this for a blues prog
I IV I bV7 IV IV I I V IV I I ||
| C | F | C | Gb7 | F | F | C | C | G | F | C | C ||
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JB
http://www.facebook.com/jbharmonica
jbustillos@gmail.com
Last Edited by on Mar 30, 2011 6:08 PM
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captainbliss
502 posts
Mar 30, 2011
6:12 PM
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@gene:
As JBharmonica says, the Wikipedia article on the tritone is worth a read.
Also, as nacoran says, the tritone is an interval, two notes played together. On a standard (i.e. Richter tuned) diatonic 3D 5D split (blocking 4) will produce a tritone.
xxx
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
608 posts
Mar 30, 2011
7:18 PM
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You want to hear it, blow a blow chord on an F# harp, then blow a blow chord on a c harp. That's the interval. It's cool and eerie sounding.
www.elkriverharmonicas.com
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"There are only two things money can't buy - true love and homegrown tomatoes." - Lewis Grizzard
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jawbone
424 posts
Mar 30, 2011
7:22 PM
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I always thought the "The Devils Interval" was the root then the flat 5th. Separate. The jump from one to the other creates the "feeling"
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If it ain't got harp - it ain't really blues!!!!
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nacoran
3943 posts
Mar 30, 2011
8:17 PM
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Remember, people have tried to ban Rock & Roll!!! Music elicits a lot of emotion in people.
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Nate
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kudzurunner
2407 posts
Mar 30, 2011
8:21 PM
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Moderators, please keep an eye on this thread. You know how we get. The creed is worried.
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gene
711 posts
Mar 30, 2011
8:32 PM
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Adam:
I grinned when I read your post. :)
I resisted temptation while I was typing my posts. ;)
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MP
1556 posts
Mar 30, 2011
11:43 PM
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i beleive at one point in western music history that the entire major scale -or pretty much all secular music, was considered devil music, or a very bad idea. minor was cool. gregorian chants anyone?
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MP
doctor of semiotics and reed replacement.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
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Andy Ley
97 posts
Mar 31, 2011
1:23 AM
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Fortean Times carried a couple of articles regarding the 'devils interval' a few years back.
The first (the most relevant to this topic)gives a brief history and examples of its use, and was a sub-section to the second article:
Link
The second flirts on the fringes of conspiracy a bit more (i.e. may contain traces of bullshit!) but is included here for anyone who may be interested:
Link
Disclaimer: These articles are links to an external site containing references to religion, science, politics, and strange phenomena. They are included for anyone interested in the subject of the OP, and not neccesarily for the purposes of discussion.
Consider the content of these links NSFCC (Not Suitable for Creed Compliance). A bit like visiting a historic site, enjoy what your looking at, but don't bring any of it back with you :)
Last Edited by on Mar 31, 2011 1:24 AM
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JimInMO
99 posts
Mar 31, 2011
5:03 AM
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@nacoran;
"Even more scarily, if you play 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' backwards over itself it will summon Justin Bieber."
You owe me a keyboard !!!
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Andrew
1316 posts
Mar 31, 2011
6:37 AM
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The definition of interval in any context is the gap between two things (it could be time or it could be space). A musical interval is the gap or distance between two notes, whether they are played in sequence or together in a chord.
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Andrew,
gentleman of leisure,
noodler extraordinaire.
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nacoran
3944 posts
Mar 31, 2011
9:55 AM
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JimInMO- I was misinformed. Apparently it actually summons Rebecca Black. Sorry for spreading misinformation. :)
I forget my music history, but music has always cause controversy, particularly anything that uses dissonant sounds. Ah, here's a link- Stravinsky causes riots!
Stravinsky
And although it technically a riot over not enough music, lets not forget the famous G&R/Metallica Toronto concert.
Or people being crushed to death at Altamonte or the riots at the latest Woodstock.
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Nate
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Buzadero
763 posts
Mar 31, 2011
9:59 AM
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"Or people being crushed to death at Altamonte or the riots at the latest Woodstock."
I thought it was people getting shanked at Altamont and crushed at Who concerts?
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~Buzadero
Underwater Janitor, Patriot
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LittleBubba
40 posts
Mar 31, 2011
10:53 AM
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Are you guys referring to the riff that Black Sabbath made famous again in "Black Sabbath"?
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Miles Dewar
819 posts
Mar 31, 2011
11:10 AM
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"Technically it's not one note, it's a combination of notes. It's said that if you play Justin Bieber backwards over the top of itself it will summon the devil.
Even more scarily, if you play 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' backwards over itself it will summon Justin Bieber."
Lmao.
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---Go Chicago Bears!!!---
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KevinS
14 posts
Mar 31, 2011
12:58 PM
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Listen for it in early Ozzy Osborne
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gene
713 posts
Mar 31, 2011
2:04 PM
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Thank you for the link Andy. That does help a little bit in understanding the mindset of those who banned it.
Of course anybody could make controversy out of anything if they really wanted to, but I don't see this article as being controversial. So here's the pertenant part:
"The tritone or 'Devil's Chord' – a musical interval, such as the augmented fourth, spanning three whole tones – has a long musical history of links to diabolism, from the Church's wholesale banning of it in the Middle Ages, through the Romantic era, blues and jazz, to modern film music and death metal.
Before the proscription of the interval it was, according to Professor John Deathridge, King Edward Professor of Music at King’s College London, often used to represent the presence of evil: "In mediæval theology, you have to have some way of presenting the devil. Or if someone in the Roman Catholic Church wanted to portray the crucifixion, it is sometimes used there." Later, though, it came to be seen as a dissonance, and was outlawed, says Deathridge, on technical grounds in which, perhaps, a theological ban can also be read."
This one may warrant your warnings.
From another article:
"Relax, not now but back in the Middle Ages certain kinds of music were banned. More specifically, certain intervals of two or more notes that sounded together or in succession were banned. In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church banned an interval that we would today write as the notes C and F#, which is called a tritone. In those times, musical instruments were tuned differently than they are today, and our modern instruments can’t reproduce this interval exactly. (There are, however, other ways of tuning instruments, still extant today, that do reproduce this interval. The Mesopotamian tunings heard on Memories of Home, for example.) To hear it, or something very close to it, sing the first two notes of Leonard Bernstein’s song “Maria” from West Side Story or just check out the video below."
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Andrew
1318 posts
Mar 31, 2011
2:34 PM
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Now people are preferring the Fortean Times to Wiki, Sheesh!
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MP
1557 posts
Mar 31, 2011
2:54 PM
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i though west side story was the work of an incubus.
any dirt on urban cowboy, or saturday night fever is welcome.
MP
doctor of semiotics and reed replacement.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
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jawbone
425 posts
Mar 31, 2011
6:52 PM
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Funny you should mention West Side Story's "Maria" - that is what I always think of - the "Mar - ee" without the "ah". The "ah" is like the resolve.
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If it ain't got harp - it ain't really blues!!!!
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phogi
521 posts
Apr 01, 2011
1:02 AM
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Also consider many early liturgical dramas - the devil was never allowed to sing, only speak, wail and moan. Does that mean that speaking, wailing, and moaning is the devil's work?
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Andrew
1319 posts
Apr 01, 2011
2:40 AM
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Justifications are just time-wasting in between statements of fact. That's why the internet is such a medium of enlightenment.
(unfortunately I'm going away for 9 or 10 days, so if anyone bites, it will be buried 20 pages down the site)
Last Edited by on Apr 01, 2011 2:42 AM
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Andy Ley
98 posts
Apr 01, 2011
4:31 AM
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@ Andrew
"Now people are preferring the Fortean Times to Wiki, Sheesh!"
I suppose that is because one is a amalgam of articles written with dubious amounts of research, & minimal verificatation or reference. Mostly by a bunch of amateurs with very little else going on in their lives; and the other one is Wikipedia! :)
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kudzurunner
2413 posts
Apr 01, 2011
4:51 AM
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Here's a relevant point of fact that I've always found fascinating in discussions of the "devil's interval," and that nobody has yet pointed out: the diminished fifth interval isn't just the distance between the root and the flat fifth; it's the distance between the major third and the flat seventh.
So ANY dominant seventh chord contains the devil's interval.
One of the quickest ways to establish blues tonality, harmonically or melodically, is to throw a flat seventh into the mix--either as a melody note that one reaches for, vocally or instrumentally, or as an extension of a major triad.
Many blues guitarists and pianists keep a seventhy feeling in all three chords of a 12-bar blues progression. If you remove all the dominant (or flat) sevenths from the harmony, the blues feeling dies and you've got kindergarten sing-alongs.
Blues tonality is grounded, to a great extent, in the devil's interval; in the dissonance that becomes part of the harmony, so to speak.
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jawbone
426 posts
Apr 01, 2011
8:53 AM
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Well, my experience with the devils interval is this - it was actually 2 years ago today - I was doing a show called "Midday Music" in a church. It was me (harps, trumpet and vocals) and another fellow who played the $280,000 Kwai Shiguru piano and sang. This was not your typical "Blues Crowd" so I was trying to explain some of the history of the "blues" etc. - I played the devils interval and explained a bit about it then got on with the program - piano players first song - his mic quit - coincidence??? - you tell me!!! But hey, the church didn't burn down, soooo.... ;-)
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If it ain't got harp - it ain't really blues!!!!
Last Edited by on Apr 01, 2011 8:55 AM
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nacoran
3951 posts
Apr 02, 2011
12:32 PM
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Okay, apparently playing Rebecca Black summons Jimmy Fallon and Steven Colbert and Taylor Hicks (with some harmonica.) Who knew?
http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video/stephen-colbert-sings-friday-with-the-roots-4-1-11/1317553
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Nate
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MP
1570 posts
Apr 02, 2011
11:59 PM
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just did what dave payne suggested only i drew an F# chord on a B and then a C chord on a low F.
freaked the dog out! man that sounds eerie!
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MP
doctor of semiotics and reed replacement.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
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Gnarly
21 posts
Apr 03, 2011
12:28 AM
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Worth mentioning in this context that the tritone in the major scale (fa to ti, or 4 to 7) is formed by the two notes that are missing from the major pentatonic.
Also, the minor pentatonic, since they are the same arrangement of tones, has the tritone removed.
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