There's an article about that diabolus in musica, the tritone, on the
Beeb's website:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4952646.stm>
But the stuff they miss!
First, the C-F#-G melody in "Maria" shouldn't really count. The F#
is just an appoggiatura. If you want a real example of a tritone,
how about the beginning of Saint-Saens' delightful "Danse Macabre",
where after a short introduction the solo fiddle kicks things off
with a tritone and a fifth, tritone and fifth, and the piece goes on
from there heaping tritone upon tritone, dissonant interval upon
dissonant interval, till the very end where the ear rests in a lovely
diatonic absence of tritones.
It's a safe bet Saint-Saens had Paganini's diabolical reputation in
mind when he chose the violin to start things off. Nicolo Paganini
was the Ozzy/Marilyn Manson of the early 19th century, a living
example of wretched excess in that crazy new stuff the kids were all
talking about, romanticism.
But the BBC's worst lapse was failing to mention the tritone that's
in every dominant 7th, e.g., G-B-D-F. Drop the I and the V and
you've got that old debbil tritone B-F.
What genre of music uses the dominant 7th like no other? Ever since
Robert Johnson met Old Scratch at the crossroads, the blues have
slapped a dominant 7th (and thereby a tritone) onto *every* chord.
You want to stay away from the devil, stay away from the blues.
Even more devilish, the inheritor of the traditions of the blues,
jazz, also has an intimate relationship with the dominant 7th, the
tritone, and sin. In fact, the other term for the tritone applies
especially well to jazz and its musicians, who certainly knew how to
diminish a fifth.
--
Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen
bob at crispen dot org
Ex Cathedra weblog: http://blog.crispen.org/
I refuse to have a culture war with an unarmed opponent. - uu_mom
|
