The Flatted Fifth - The Devil's Interval

The flatted fifth has been called the Devil's interval, and people were actually executed "back in the day" for writing songs that used this interval. The flatted fifth is the chromatic passing note between the four and the five in the scale - the so-called "blues note".

[captainphoenix]

Some bits you might have missed:
1:18 Black Dog
3:57 Johnny B. Goode
4:07 Flight of the Bumblebee

[jstephen]

Every Slayer song ever has the flatted fifth in it if you're looking for examples.

[faithfulpoet]

I love watching this guy play. He makes it look easy.

[devindash]

The us national anthem has it.

"by the dawns ear-LY light"
"through the peri-LOUS fight"
"and the ro-CKETT's red glare"
"the bombs bur-STING in air"
"that our flag was STILL there"

I think all of the capped syllables are where the flattened fifth appear and there may be even more I am missing. The Simpson's theme has it too.

[justfine]

George Lynch is such a boss at this. I think of him, every time I hear a flatted fifth. It’s Not Love!

[fajamm]

I didn't know Woody Harrelson was so good at guitar.

[ericanderson]

It's a MYTH that tritones were "banned" or that anyone was "executed" for using them. They do sometimes occur in medieval religious music. They were rarely used because they're difficult to sing in key and because they sounded weird in that context.

[KiKiTheTechie]

to clarify: diminished = lowered by a half step. Not mentioned here, but augmented = raised by a half step. This is only true with 4th's and 5th's as you only have aug/dim with perfect intervals. If you're clever, you'll have spotted that an augmented 4th is enharmonic with (sounds the same as) a diminished 5th.

[Allentox]

For Whom the Bell Tolls, Aqua Lung, Paranoid, Purple Haze, just to name a few.

[philosophergrrl]

thank you! I always wondered about that. I've no idea about the technical stuff, so the demonstration was fantastic!

[terryperring]

I just came across it myself and-sorry but-if I saw this first I would have no idea what it is.  He-should really isolate the 2 notes to strongly establish what it is. I discovered it from the two-tone alarm in hospitals when a patient crashes. I mentioned it to other nurses but they just kind looked at me strange. Why?  Humans-strange things...

[CoreyChambersLA]

Excellent overview of the devil's interval with perfect examples

[Nitrousoxidek]

This is a great video, because (obvious from the comments) he makes it very clear how common the tritone actually is in popular music.

[whateverittakes]

The flatted fifth is at the core of every blues based musical form point blank. you might even say that they had a point when they said rock was the devil's music. It is. };-)

[templeofflesh]

From what i understand in resurching this, the "ban" of the tritone never happened. Its not heard in music way back when simply because its VERY hard to sing and so it was avoided as much as possible. If it was banned there wouldent be music with the tritone from the time period of so called ban.

[askingalexandriaaa]

It has a different function depending on whether the scale is minor or major. When you play in minor/aelion scale when seen as the major/ionian mode its actually the flattened 3rd. Because of this it doesn't sound so dark if its in a minor scale. Whereas in the aeolian mode if you use the flattened fifth it sounds dark and non-intuitive.

[ROKOKDBLEND]

for a 10 years old video, this dude sure as hell had a dopeass camera

[BOJACKARY]

Thank you for this explanation and examples! Its got me thinking! Now on to more thinking! Thank you

[onefeather]

That is NOT true that they couldn't play the devil's cord, it was just hard to sing to and didn't have a resolution. Monks 400 years ago had it in their music.

[TMoody]

Dave Mustaine's A heavy Metal Memoir book bought me here.