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5. Bio-Rhythms (From Formalism to Somaesthetics)
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insofar as we are trying to understand the role of music in the health care of the soul. In light of Plato’s moral psychology it would seem to make sense to inquire into the harmonic dimensions of the music. In this connection it is especially interesting to consider the unfortunate career of one particular musical interval—the tritone—also known infamously as the “devil’s interval.” The term tritone derives from the fact that it comprises three whole tones. So, for example, the interval between the fourth and seventh degrees of the diatonic major scale (comprising three whole tones) is a tritone . But this is only one of several distinct ways to ‹nd or generate the interval. One might say there are several theoretically distinct musical intervals (formal or arithmetic relationships such as the “augmented fourth” or “›atted ‹fth”) all gathered together under the name tritone. In Western ecclesiastical music the tritone is expressly forbidden as the “devil’s interval” (diabolus in musica or “the devil in music”), and it is generally frowned on in strict counterpoint. In the teaching of composition it is still widely discouraged, although in the rebellious twentieth century this has had more or less the force of a dare, and important composers have used it quite prominently and pointedly. For example, Leonard Bernstein used the tritone as the basis for the lead melodic motif in “Maria” in West Side Story. As he sings the name “Maria,” the romantic lead, “Tony,” begins on the tonic (“Ma”), then sounds the tritone (“ri”), resolving the aching tension thus produced by sliding up to the ‹fth (“a”). Danny Elfman uses the very same musical phrase as the opening fanfare in The Simpsons theme song (sing “The Simpsons”). Another prominent example of the tritone would be the chiming guitar chords in the opening bar of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.” The Tritone in Blues Tonality The tritone plays a crucial and powerful role in evolving blues idioms, although its analysis continues to baf›e blues scholarship. In his analysis of blues tonality, Gerhard Kubik devotes a chapter to the “›atted ‹fth,” which stands out for him as something of an anomaly. He notes that it receives little attention as a “blue note” in the literature of musicology before the 1940s, although it appears in earlier recordings. Where does it come from and how does it function? In keeping with his general reluctance to carelessly superimpose Western tuning theory onto blues practices , Kubik says that the so-called ›atted ‹fth is better understood as an independent component of a distinctive pentatonic blues scale. Kubik con‹nes his analysis to its melodic use in vocal lines, observing that it ocBlue Notes and Greek Philosophy 97 curs primarily in descending phrases. In such contexts Kubik locates it within a pentatonic scale or mode—descending from the tonic, through the ›atted seventh, the pure ‹fth, the tritone, then the ›atted third, and returning to the tonic—which he traces speculatively to multiple African sources with possible links to Arabic and Islamic origins. But the tritone also turns up occasionally in ascending vocal lines. In such cases Kubik seems inclined to follow David Evans’s speculation that it may function in such ascending phrases as a blue third above a blue third. But he says, “There is probably no unitary theory to ‘explain’ the ‘›atted ‹fth.’”46 If we look beyond its deployment in melody, we ‹nd the tritone also playing an important role in blues harmony and modulation. Consider the de‹nitive blues chord formed by the tonic plus the major third and the ›atted seventh. The interval between the major third and the ›atted seventh is a tritone. It is this tritone that “colors the chord blue.” Now move that tritone interval down chromatically one half step while moving the root from the tonic to the fourth or subdominant. A wonderful thing happens: the identical blue chord is produced but with the voices “inverted” as the subdominant or IV chord. Once this movement principle has been understood, it can be reproduced quite mechanically all the way around the “circle of fourths” (C, F, B, E, . . . ), shifting the tritone down chromatically for each modulation. The same principle applies in reverse. Move the tritone up chromatically by half steps while moving the root from the tonic to the ‹fth or dominant and continue modulating through the “circle of ‹fths” (C, G, D, A, . . .). Now a corollary : hold the tritone interval between the third and...