There’s a new Major Third in town. Move over church chimes and door bells. Eat your heart out, Big Ben. This new Major Third is nasty—it’s in F-Sharp!
The Duolingo sound for correct guesses is a pair of sixteenths notes from F# to A#—the happy part of a Major chord. A reverse door bell: the Duolingo sound goes “dong ding.” It’s supposed to make you feel good, the leitmotif to your dopamine hit. It helps you forget that the app is scanning your eyeballs, reading your mind, and selling the data to China.
All the Major Thirds around us go back to the song “Westminster Quarters.” Churches were always nice enough to put their chimes in a normal key like C Major, or sometimes E Major, but never something as nasty as F-Sharp. F-Sharp Major only exists because of 12-Tone Equal Temperament, the 20th century “Commie” tuning which is certainly the nastiest.
Compare the Duolingo sound to the coin sound in Super Mario Bros.
I hear the Duolingo sound about a thousand times a day after my girlfriend whispers sweet Italian nothings into her iPhone. It is the Pavlovian bell in our household. Since the phone never rings and the door bell never dings, we needed a replacement Major Third.
tell laura i just finished the italian course! ciao!