There are three notes for when shit gets real. The popular “Dun Dun Duuun” has been around for centuries and pops up in every piece of media. You know what notes I’m talking about when I say “Dun Dun Duuun.” There’s even a Wikipedia entry for “Dun Dun Duuun!” A dun on the Eb, another […]
Archive of posts tagged tritone
Duolingo: The Sound of Failure
In our last post, we covered the Duolingo “Sound of Success,” a happy Major Third inspired by door bells, store chimes, dial tones and car horns, which were in turn inspired by Big Ben’s bell song “Westminster Quarters.” Now we turn our aural gaze to a more dissonant, evil sound—The Sound of Failure. If the […]
The Devil in Music
Behold and Hearken! The Blessèd Circle of Fifths… Beginning at the top with a low A and following clockwise, we cycle through the 12 tones of Equal Temperament, spanning seven octaves, ascending a fifth at a time, till we return once again to the octave and back to the A. Drag your mouse in clockwise […]
Los Crazies
Many a composers have walked these halls of hallucinations, guided by voices, consumed by musical madness, opened the doors of delusion, where everything disappears to man as it ain’t (still infinite), and beheard the sick psychedelic song at the center of the universe looping back in their mind’s ear, screaming like tinnitus and beating like […]
Tonally Matrimony
People actually get married to this chord. At least in the Anglosphere they do. It’s from Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.” After a monotonal ceremony of gifts, vows, and proclamation, this dissonant chord kicks in on pipe organ. It’s an A minor 6th, which has the satanic interval between the F# and C known as a tritone. […]
Close Encounters of the Major Third Kind
“Up a Whole Tone, down a Major Third, down an Octave, up a Perfect Fifth.” In “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, grey aliens play these 5 Tones on their mothership’s synthesizer. Hollywood composer John Williams wrote the lick, and fashioned it after the 5 letter word “Hello”. Two of the tones are the same, […]
