A Note for Bad Boys

One night, in the year 1713 I dreamed I had made a pact with the devil for my soul. Everything went as I wished: my new servant anticipated my every desire. Among other things, I gave him my violin to see if he could play. How great was my astonishment on hearing a sonata so wonderful and so beautiful, played with such great art and intelligence, as I had never even conceived in my boldest flights of fantasy.

— Giuseppe Tartini (1770)

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The Western musical scale is divided into twelve notes which repeat in increasing sonic frequencies over octaves starting with the lowest note first. Each note in this chromatic scale is a semi-tone in distance from the two notes adjacent to it. Two notes separated by a semi-tone are a tone apart from one another.

Two notes which are three tones apart from one another form a tritone.

There is one natural tritone in the major, or diatonic, scale, which most people know as Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, [Do]. In the key of C, the notes of the diatonic scale are the white keys on the piano. The one natural tritone in the diatonic scale is the interval from Fa to Ti, which are the F and B notes in the key of C.

The diaphony of the sonic frequencies of the two notes played together at a tritone interval is dissonant. This dissonance creates a tension, which can become unpleasant if prolonged, such as in a fire alarm. As a result, it is used by composers to create tension in a musical passage to resolve to a more consonant, or harmonious, group of notes or chord.

Without getting too technical, the naturally occurring tritone in the diatonic scale is the third and seventh notes of the five (V) chord, and it resolves back to the one (I) chord. This is usually easy to hear in popular music because it is so familiar. For example, the harmonic resolution in the first verse of “Johnny B. Goode” occurs from the fifth line to the sixth line, which is typical for this form:

I Deep down in Louisiana, close to New Orleans,

I Way back up in the woods, among the evergreens,

IV There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood,

I Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode,

V Who never ever learned to read or write so well,

I But he could play a guitar just like ringing a bell.

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The tritone of the tonic note of a key is not natural to the diatonic scale. It is the note between Fa and So, and is alternatively called the diminished, or flatted, fifth, or the augmented fourth. The difference is in the way in which the dissonance resolves; the former, inward, and the latter, outward. But this is neither here, nor there. It’s the same note, and when music becomes mathematics, it usually ceases to be musical.

In some literature, this note is called the “blue” note, and it is frequently played in a chromatic run in music based on the blues scale. It is, for example, the middle note in the descending run in the middle of the riff of “Sunshine of Your Love,” and Mick Taylor uses an ascending run to punctuate the guitar solo in “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.”

In some circles, the tritone of the tonic against the flatted fifth is called, “the Devil’s Interval.” Indeed, an ironic mythology has developed upon this notion, much like the vampire genre in motion pictures has developed into an alternate reality which becomes more elaborate with every iteration.

Part of the myth is the contention or claim that the Church banned the use of the “Devil’s interval” in music. However, there is no hard evidence for this.

On the one hand, in 1325, Pope John XXII did issue the Docta Sanctorum Patrum to address some of the excesses in festivals, and in this, he did instruct musicians to behave better so as not to provoke decadence. Towards this end, the bull did not prohibit harmonic excursions; it merely suggested that they be more discreetly indulged, with the principle idea being that music should be beautiful.

On the other hand, in 1725, a Baroque composure named, “Johann Joseph Fux,” published a study entitled, “Gradus ad Parnassum,” in which he argued that “mi contra fa est diabolus in musica.” (mi against fa is the devil in music.) Even though in today’s language this would be the third against the fourth, which is also dissonant, most musicology translators have concluded that Fux is referring to the tonic against the flatted fifth. More importantly, he did not intend that the interval is literally the Devil in music. Instead, the point made is merely that the interval is difficult to sing and should be used sparingly.

Moreover, there is nothing inherently sinister about the interval. It is used to uplifting effect in the Simpsons’ theme song and in “Maria” in West Side Story. In contrast, it is used by Wagner to convey brooding with the timpani at the start of the second act of “Siegfried,” and to convey forbidden love and longing in “Tristan und Isolde.” In “The Girl From Ipanema,” it signals the key shift and the interlude evocative of longing. And in Tartini’s, “The Devil’s Trill,” the effect is some devilish combination of urgency, foreboding, and anxiety.

Nevertheless, the interval has been adopted by Heavy Metal as a dominant motif in its music. Although Jimi Hendrix featured it in “Purple Haze,” and although “Smoke on the Water” couldn’t otherwise exist, it was Black Sabbath, in “Black Sabbath,” which set the marker. Notably, Black Sabbath admits to having nicked their theme from “Mars,” by Gustav Holst (1914). Even to this day, many rockers repeat the dogma that the Church banned the playing of the tritone to imply that their music is rebellious and laden with menace.

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The point being that the flatted fifth can sound very cool and can be used to great effect. It’s the breaking of a rule which requires exquisite timing.

One of my favorite uses of the flatted fifth is in a song by Charles Mingus, who was a very complex individual. He was an extremely serious person and musician, but he was also mischievous. He was politically astute, and an advocate for civil rights in a time when the socio-economic order was very tough on black jazz musicians. In 1959, he wrote an elegy for Lester Young entitled, “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.”

The song is in the key of E-flat minor, and it is written on the blues scale. This means that almost all of the notes in the tune are played on the black keys. The flatted fifth, i.e., the “Devil’s note,” is a white key.

This is not to argue that Mingus intentionally added political commentary to this song. The “Devil’s note” being a white key may be a mere coincidence. E-flat minor has its own color, and this may be what Mingus strove to capture in his tribute to his friend. However, Lester Young, a kind and sensitive man, did have a more difficult time in the prevailing culture than most of his contemporaries, so that in addition to striving for elegant music, Mingus may have also been making a political point.

In any event, the “Devil’s note” shoots out like a stinger in the first phrase of the second line, which otherwise essentially repeats the first line.

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Without further ado: