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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritone
tritone
Inverse
tritone
Name
Other names
augmented fourth,
diminished fifth
Abbreviation
TT
Size
Semitones
Interval class
Just interval
Equal
600
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6.3 Resolution
6.4 Other uses
7 Historical uses
8 See also
9 Sources
10 Further reading
11 External links
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In a chromatic scale, the interval between any note and the previous or next is a semitone. Using the
notes of a chromatic scale, each tone can be divided into two semitones:
T = S+S
For instance, the tone from C to D (in short, CD) can be decomposed into the two semitones CC
and CD by using the note C, which in a chromatic scale lies between C and D. This means that,
when a chromatic scale is used, a tritone can be also defined as any musical interval spanning six
semitones:
TT = T+T+T = S+S+S+S+S+S.
According to this definition, with the twelve notes of a chromatic scale it is possible to define twelve
different tritones, each starting from a different note and ending six notes above it. Although all of
them span six semitones, six of them are classified as A4, and the other six as d5.
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On the other hand, two A4 add up to six whole tones. In equal temperament, this is equal to exactly
one perfect octave:
A4 + A4 = P8.
In quarter-comma meantone temperament, this is a diesis (128/125) less than a perfect octave:
A4 + A4 = P8 diesis.
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The unstable character of the tritone sets it apart, as discussed in [28] [Paul Hindemith.
The Craft of Musical Composition, Book I. Associated Music Publishers, New York, 1945].
It can be expressed as a ratio by compounding suitable superparticular ratios. Whether it
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In the Pythagorean ratio 81/64 both numbers are multiples of 3 or under, yet because of
their excessive largeness the ear certainly prefers 5/4 for this approximate degree, even
though it involves a prime number higher than 3. In the case of the 45/32, 'tritone' our
theorists have gone around their elbows to reach their thumbs, which could have been
reached simply and directly and non-'diabolically' via number 7.[17]
Occurrences in chords
The dominant seventh chord in root position contains a diminished fifth (tritone) within its pitch
construction: it occurs between the third and seventh above the root. In addition, augmented sixth
chords, some of which are enharmonic to dominant seventh chords, contain tritones spelled as
augmented fourths (for example, the German sixth, from A to D in the key of A minor); the French
sixth chord can be viewed as a superposition of two tritones a major second apart.
The diminished triad also contains a tritone in its construction, deriving its name from the
diminished-fifth interval (i.e. a tritone). The half-diminished seventh chord contains the same tritone,
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while the fully diminished seventh chord is made up of two superposed tritones a minor third apart.
Other chords built on these, such as ninth chords, often include tritones (as diminished fifths).
Resolution
In all of the sonorities mentioned above, used in functional
harmonic analysis, the tritone pushes towards resolution,
generally resolving by step in contrary motion. This determines
the resolution of chords containing tritones.
The augmented fourth resolves outward to a minor or major sixth.
Tritone resolution inward
The inversion of this, a diminished fifth, resolves inward to a major
or minor third. The diminished fifth is often called a tritone in
( Play ), and outwards ( Play ).
modern tonal theory, but functionally and notationally it can only
resolve inwards as a diminished fifth and is therefore not
reckoned a tritonethat is, an interval composed of three adjacent whole tonesin mid-renaissance
(early 16th-century) music theory.[18]
Other uses
The tritone is also one of the defining features of the Locrian mode, being featured between the
fifth scale degrees.
and
The half-octave tritone interval is used in the musical/auditory illusion known as the tritone paradox.
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represent the juxtaposition of "mi contra fa".[22] Johann Joseph Fux cites the phrase in his seminal
1725 work Gradus ad Parnassum, Georg Philipp Telemann in 1733 describes, "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'."[23] 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.[24] However Denis Arnold, in
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").[25]
That original symbolic association with the devil and its avoidance led to Western cultural convention
seeing the tritone as suggesting "evil" in music. However, stories that singers were excommunicated
or otherwise punished by the Church for invoking this interval are likely fanciful. At any rate,
avoidance of the interval for musical reasons has a long history, stretching back to the parallel
organum of the Musica Enchiriadis. In all these expressions, including the commonly cited "mi contra
fa est diabolus in musica", the "mi" and "fa" refer to notes from two adjacent hexachords. For
instance, in the tritone BF, B would be "mi", that is the third scale degree in the "hard" hexachord
beginning on G, while F would be "fa", that is the fourth scale degree in the "natural" hexachord
beginning on C.
Later, with the rise of the Baroque and Classical music era, composers accepted the tritone, but still
didn't use it in a specific, controlled waynotably through the principle of the tension-release
mechanism of the tonal system. In that system (which is the fundamental musical grammar of
Baroque and Classical music), the tritone is one of the defining intervals of the dominant-seventh
chord and two tritones separated by a minor third give the fully diminished seventh chord its
characteristic sound. In minor, the diminished triad (comprising two minor thirds, which together add
up to a tritone) appears on the second scale degreeand thus features prominently in the
progression iioVi. Often, the inversion iio6 is used to move the tritone to the inner voices as this
allows for stepwise motion in the bass to the dominant root. In three-part counterpoint, free use of the
diminished triad in first inversion is permitted, as this eliminates the tritone relation to the bass.[26]
It is only with the Romantic music and modern classical music that composers started to use it totally
freely, without functional limitations notably in an expressive way to exploit the "evil" connotations
culturally associated with it (e.g., Franz Liszt's use of the tritone (https://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=_PrsflaFB58) to suggest Hell in his Dante Sonata:
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- or Wagners use of timpani tuned to C and F sharp to convey a brooding atmosphere at the start of
the second act (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt8VeUzG3Zc) of the opera Siegfried.
In his early cantata La Damoiselle lue, Debussy uses a tritone to convey the words of the poem by
Dante Gabriel Rosetti.
Roger Nichols (1972, p19) says that "the bare fourths, the wide spacing, the tremolos, all depict the
words the light thrilled towards her with sudden, overwhelming power. [27] Debussys String
Quartet also features passages that emphasise the tritone:
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The tritone was also exploited heavily in that period as an interval of modulation for its ability to evoke
a strong reaction by moving quickly to distantly related keys. Later, in twelve-tone music, serialism,
and other 20th century compositional idioms, composers considered it a neutral interval.[28] In some
analyses of the works of 20th century composers, the tritone plays an important structural role;
perhaps the most cited is the axis system, proposed by Ern Lendvai, in his analysis of the use of
tonality in the music of Bla Bartk.[29] Tritone relations are also important in the music of George
Crumb and Benjamin Britten, whose War Requiem features a tritone between C and F as a recurring
motif.[30] John Bridcut (2010, p. 271) describes the power of the interval in creating the sombre and
ambiguous opening of the War Requiem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsSMCq7pl_k): The
idea that the chorus and orchestra are condent in their wrong-headed piety is repeatedly disputed by
the music. From the instability of the opening tritone that unsettling interval between C and F sharp
accompanied by the tolling of warning bells eventually resolves into a major chord for the arrival
of the boys singing 'Te decet hymnus.[31] George Harrison uses tritones on the downbeats of the
opening phrases of the Beatles songs "The Inner Light", "Blue Jay Way" and "Within You Without
You", creating a prolonged sense of suspended resolution.[32] Perhaps the most striking use of the
interval in rock music of the late 1960s can be found in Jimi Hendrix's song "Purple Haze"
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj1EI0vCvFw). According to Dave Moskowitz (2010, p.12),
Hendrix "ripped into 'Purple Haze' by beginning the song with the sinister sounding tritone interval
creating an opening dissonance, long described as 'The Devil in Music'."[33]
Tritones also became important in the development of jazz tertian harmony, where triads and seventh
chords are often expanded to become 9th, 11th, or 13th chords, and the tritone often occurs as a
substitute for the naturally occurring interval of the perfect 11th. Since the perfect 11th (i.e. an octave
plus perfect fourth) is typically perceived as a dissonance requiring a resolution to a major or minor
10th, chords that expand to the 11th or beyond typically raise the 11th a semitone (thus giving us an
augmented or sharp 11th, or an octave plus a tritone from the root of the chord) and present it in
conjunction with the perfect 5th of the chord. Also in jazz harmony, the tritone is both part of the
dominant chord and its substitute dominant (also known as the sub V chord). Because they share the
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1. Don Michael Randel (2003). The Harvard Dictionary of Music: Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press.
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Neue Heidelberger Studien zur Musikwissenschaft (in German) 6. Bern: Francke. p. 7. OCLC 1390982.
"...mi contra fa ... welches die alten den Satan in der Music nenneten" "...alten Solmisatores dieses
angenehme Intervall mi contra fa oder den Teufel in der Music genannt haben."
24. F. J. Smith, "Some Aspects of the Tritone and the Semitritone in the Speculum Musicae: The
Non-Emergence of the Diabolus in Music," Journal of Musicological Research 3 (1979), pp. 6374, at 70.
25. Arnold, Denis (1983) Tritone in The New Oxford Companion to Music, Volume 1: AJ,Oxford University
Press. ISBN 0-19-311316-3
26. Jeppesen, Knud (1992) [1939]. Counterpoint: the polyphonic vocal style of the sixteenth century. trans. by
Glen Haydon, with a new foreword by Alfred Mann. New York: Dover. ISBN 0-486-27036-X.
27. Nichols, R. (1972) Debussy. Oxford University Press.
28. Persichetti, Vincent (1961). Twentieth-century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice. New York: W. W.
Norton. ISBN 0-393-09539-8. OCLC 398434.
29. Lendvai, Ern (1971). Bla Bartk: An Analysis of his Music. introd. by Alan Bush. London: Kahn & Averill.
pp. 116. ISBN 0-900707-04-6. OCLC 240301.
30. http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~tan/Britten/req1.html Musical Analysis of the War Requiem, accessed 16
March 2016
31. Bridcut, J. (2010), Essential Britten, a pocket guide for the Britten Centenary. London, Faber.
32. Dominic Pedler. The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. Music Sales Ltd. Omnibus Press. London, 2010
pp. 522523
33. Moskowitz, D. (2010) The Words and Music of Jimi Hendrix. Praeger.
R., Ken (2012). DOG EAR Tritone Substitution for Jazz Guitar, Amazon Digital Services, Inc.,
ASIN: B008FRWNIW
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