This Latin term, meaning “the devil [or demon] in music,” is generally used to denote the interval of a tritonus (F–B or other of the same size, 3 whole tones). The way it is often used suggests that it is a medieval term referring to this interval.
A jump from a root note, up a whole tone and then up a whole tone again, so F to G, G to A, and finally A to B. The leap from F to B is quite dissonant. In the right hands, it can add an electric frisson to a piece of music. Think of the intro to the Rush instrumental YYZ from the 1981 Moving Pictures album.
“It was called Diabolus in Musica by two or three writers in the medieval or renaissance [because it] was 'false music,'” he explained, since “the intervals weren't natural.” On the other hand, composers and conductors may have found it “devilishly hard to teach the singers not to sing it,” he said.
Not found in either the major or minor scales, and due to its discordant sound, it has been called “the Devil's Chord.” This interval of notes was actually outlawed by the Catholic Church in the 17th century because it was felt only “pleasant intervals should be used to praise God.”
The Diablos Motorcycle Club is an outlaw motorcycle club founded in San Bernardino, California in 1961 that has chapters in cities across the United States.
The term fra diavolo, from which diablo sauce got its name, is Italian for 'brother devil'. This refers literally to the sauce's characteristic spicy kick and red colouring. From that term alone, you can imagine the unfathomable heat the sauce is known for as well as its bright red hues.
Tritone
Name
Other names
augmented fourth, diminished fifth, the Devil's interval (obscure)
Abbreviation
TT, A4, d5
Size
Semitones
6
Simply an interval so just like you have a perfect fit or a perfect 4th tritone is an interval. So let's start on C.
I don't know if that's true um or they'd kick you out. So uh what else it's very dissonant. This uh makes a diminished seventh chord if you had two tritones. This is from my other.
The history of the devil's tritone, told through 10 key tracks
'Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun' – Claude Debussy (1894)
'Blues for Alice' – Charlie Parker (1951)
'Girl From Ipanema' – Antonio Carlos Jobim (1962)
'Purple Haze' – Jimi Hendrix (1967)
'Black Sabbath' – Black Sabbath (1970)
As jazz's popularity grew, so did campaigns to censor "the devil's music." Early detractors like Thomas Edison, inventor of the phonograph, ridiculed jazz, saying it sounded better played backwards.
The tritone was dubbed the Devil's Chord due to its dissonant and unsettling sound, which was believed to summon the devil in the Middle Ages.
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