Talk:Tritone

message: Where do we mention that the tritone is alo known as Diabolo in Musica, Diabolus in musica, or Diavolo in musica? Would improve findability. PS apologies for any newbie mistakes in editing Tacoekkel (talk) 16:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a link to Diabolo (disambiguation).  Tayste (edits) 20:31, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternatives 

message: Is it true that "a common symbol for tritone is π"? We used "TT" in school. Hyacinth 11:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have never seen pi used, so I'm removing it until someone provides a source. —Keenan Pepper 13:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For goodness sake that's T.T (Tri Tone), which is commonly used, only someone wrote the two Ts too close together once and someone else interpreted it as a pi symbol.--JamesTheNumberless 15:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Did you mean T.T. (not T.T) with a period after each T? I never saw TT or T.T. used anywhere myself, and I personally don't like either of them, because each requires more than one character to represent an interval, which gets confusing when strung together. Also the real word is "tritone", not "tri tone", so the second "T" in TT or T.T. capitalizes a letter found in the middle of the word, in which case, to be consistent, semitone would have to be abbreviated "S.T.", but whatever, it doesn't matter what any of us happened to see in some class or happen to use ourselves or happen to like. What matters is what can be backed up by citation, of which there still is none for "TT" or "T.T.". By the way, Howard Hanson used "t" (the single, lower case character) to represent the tritone in his "Harmonic materials of modern music: resources of the tempered scale", which absolutely could be cited (here's a peek http://archive.org/stream/harmonicmaterial00hans#page/10/mode/2up/search/tritone), but his system is a little different in that octaves are ignored, and all intervals are reduced to their smallest inversion. For example, a major seventh interval equates to a half step, so his system doesn't really apply in this article. Still, "t" would be so much more convenient than "TT" or "T.T." would be. Whatever.—76.94.244.40 (talk) 21:50, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Most commonly, as far as I know, S = Semitone, T = Tone, TT = Tritone. The symbols used by Howard Hanson seeem to be quite unusual, difficult to remember, and hence only useful in the textbook in which he operationally defined them. Paolo.dL (talk) 23:09, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  "As far as I know" is nice for the talk page (I'm guilty of it too), but it doesn't help the article. Can you cite the use of TT?—76.94.244.40 (talk) 01:14, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Pi

message: I don't think this should be exaggerated, which I think the article did. Persichetti in Twentieth-Century Harmony has what I think is a more usual view: 
:It is difficult to classify the tritone or the perfect fourth out of musical context. The tritone divides the octave at its halfway point and is the least stable of intervals. It sounds primarily neutral in chromatic passages and restless in diatonic passages. The perfect fourth sounds consonant in dissonant surroundings, and dissonant in consonant surroundings. 
That's more like it, I think. Gene Ward Smith 03:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Degree of dissonance of the tritone 

message: The tritone is a restless interval, classed as a dissonance in common practice music; even more dissonant than the minor second or seventh, and given the name diabolus in musica ("the Devil in music") by some from the early music era to the baroque period, likely because of its unwanted occurrence as F against B when two voices were singing a fifth apart. It was exploited heavily in the Romantic period as an interval of modulation for its ability to evoke a strong reaction by entering the key least related (retaining only two common tones, the least possible) to what occurs previously.
I'll try to provide some better information on this.  Anyway, this paragraph needs to be improved.
Anyway, you'd think the "key least related" would have no common tones.
The secondary dominant and diminished seventh relations are what facilitates modulation in tonal music.  Both of which contain tritones.  Not sure what the paragraph above is trying to get at and I think it would just confuse someone who is trying to learn the basics of music theory.--Roivas 22:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When taking 7 of 12 tones to build your scale, you only have 5 tones left over. So, if you want to pick the most unrelated scale of 7 tones, you have to reuse at least 2 (7-5 = 2). (Though the minor-second modulation also has only 2 common tones.) - Rainwarrior 22:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

text: As for the diabolus in musica stuff, a citation should be really easy to find. If my books weren't packed up in boxes right now I'd put one down for you, but if anyone else out there has, say, the Richard Hoppin Medieval Music, or even the Grout history, check the index for it. You'll find something. - Rainwarrior 23:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I put in some clarification there--the Diabolus in Musica is not a medieval term (search for it in the Thesaurus musicarum latinum and you won't find anything).  I also tried to start a little section on its use in the classical and baroque eras.  I think that after the initial definitions, dividing the article by usage historically is important.  (I also think that the list of pieces with tritones in them needs to be pruned carefully--naming works without prominent tritones is harder than naming works with them).  --Myke Cuthbert 00:32, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I have the Weiss-Taruskin Music in the Western World sitting here, but I didn't see anything on the tritone (it avoids music notation for the most part, so discussion of elements such as tritones is sparse).  The Strunk volume of documents might have something on this topic, but I also doubt it.  --Myke Cuthbert 22:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Btw -- Nice job on so many edits, Roivas.  I want to move the part about the TT in "first inversion" chords from Jeppesen to between the Medieval and Baroque sections, since it's really dealing with 16th century music which played by different rules.  We don't yet have a subsection on the tritone's use in Renaissance music.  --Myke Cuthbert 03:23, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

text: "even more dissonant than the minor second or seventh"
This statement bothers me as dissonant and consonant are fairly subjective terms and the definitions for both tend to change drastically within short periods of time.  I know that Hindemith qualifies what you are saying (for his own reasons), but I'm sure I can find sources that say otherwise.  Can we make this statement less definite or, at least, qualify it with a source?--Roivas 19:30, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Tritone's usage in history 

message: If folks would please refrain from adding more and more "tritone occurences" in popular culture, that would be great.  It's one of the most ubiquitous musical devices in Western Music.  Nothing special about it.  Suprised no one has mentioned the English police siren!  At least that's sort of interesting.--Roivas 22:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  The newest Ravel example seems absolutely silly.  A list of Ravel works without tritones would be more interesting.  Or a discussion of how Ravel uses it would help someone who comes to this article expecting to learn something.  The European siren usage would be a good mention though.  --Myke Cuthbert 04:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Occurrences

message: Can someone translate the German regarding the tritone in the history section? Not all of us (including me) understand German. bibliomaniac15 05:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not so fluent, but since I did add the texts, I guess I have some responsibility.  :)  I am surprised by the "angenehme" and really hope I didn't mistranscribe "unangenehme," but given other things Mattheson has written, it is entirely possible.  Also, I added a little section explaining how mi-fa can be a tritone. --Myke Cuthbert 05:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can someone... 

message: With respects to Jazz music, shouldn't someone mention tritone substitutions? (unsigned message)
:An important element not mentioned in the article, but I have little expertise on the issue, so I can't add this section.--Myke Cuthbert 16:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Currently it's breifly mentioned in the article but I think it deserves some more limelight then what it currently has. Omillas (talk) 21:05, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tritone Substitutes 

message: Historically, the interval of the tritone was Mi-contra-fa, not Si contra fa; Si against Fa implies solfeggio thinking, while Mi against fa is hexachordal thinking.  Please read the 18th century theoretical examples before changing this again.  --Myke Cuthbert 02:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: how exactly does "mi against fa" describe a tritone and not a half step? Der Elbenkoenig (talk) 01:41, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The question might just as well be asked the other way around, in which case the answer is "only when mi and fa are in the same hexachord". Mi in the "hard" hexachord (the one running from G up to E with all natural notes) is B, while fa in the natural hexachord (the one from C up to A) is F. The notes F and B form a tritone when F is the lower tone, and a semidiapente (diminished fifth) when B is the lower note. Of course, if you take the hard and soft hexachords (the "soft" hexachord is the one from F up to D with a B-flat), mi in the former is (once again) B, but fa in the latter is B-flat (hence a chromatic semitone, or augmented unison, which in the rules of 16th-century counterpoint is a very different thing from a minor second); the reverse puts A against C (a minor third). The dictum does not really apply to derived (transposed) hexachords, where virtually any interval at all may result from mi against fa.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mi contra Fa 

message: I've always thought that the lowest note in the repeated bass line of the Rolling Stone's "Sympathy for the Devil" sounds like "the wrong note". Someone suggested to me recently that maybe they were using "the Devil's  interval". Does someone know if this is true? If so, it seems like that fact would be a worthy addition to that article (and maybe this one). - dcljr (talk) 03:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the wrong note is an 'A' beneath an E major chord. Usually a bassist should play a 'B' in this context, but here he plays an 'A'. The interval is a perfect-fourth which sounds wrong because it's not part of the harmony (producing other dissonant intervals, like a major second/ninth and a major seventh, but no tritones). - Rainwarrior 05:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sympathy for the Devil's Interval 

message: It seems to say more about Lillian Hellman or Dorothy Parker than about the tritone.  Consensus to remove? --Myke Cuthbert 19:39, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it's amusing and characteristic of Parker's wit but obviously pretty irrelevant here. Rigadoun  (talk) 19:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I might be more against trivia sections in articles than others, but I think this piece of trivia might not have a good place in Wikipedia.  There are many great jokes about diminished fifths, but I don't know where they should go.  Though I think an article on humorous statements made about music theory would be a fine addition to WP, and I'd definitely want to contribute.  --Myke Cuthbert 01:06, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hugh7 trivia 

message: That the equal-tempered tritone stems from an irrational number ratio does not explain it as a dissonance.  Except for the octave, all intervals in ET are irrational numbers.  The perfect fifth, for instance is 1.4983070768766..., yet it is treated as a consonance.  --Myke Cuthbert 01:06, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's near to several just intervals, like 7/5. Furthermore irrationality is certainly not the cause of dissonance, and equal temperament is not the cause of the tritone's dissonance. The tritone is still dissonant in just intonation (and it was known to be dissonant long before temperament began). - Rainwarrior 16:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  7/5 is pretty remote for a just interval, being the ratio of two non-trivial prime numbers. Two vibrating bodies tuned to 7:5 will pass through their rest-points in the same direction only every 35 cycles, which is rather too many for the ear to "count". Do people hear that as "more harmonious" than an accurate 2^½:1? --Hugh7 07:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And 6/5 only once every 30, but that one's long been catalogued as a consonance, and what about 7/4, shouldn't that be by your logic more consonant than 6/5? The lowest common multiple isn't really a measure of consonance. Dissonance and consonance are largely contrapuntal functions, for instance, 4/3 is "dissonant" in much theory. 7/5 is dissonant in tonal use in general. This has nothing to do with the fact that 7/5 is an audibly pure and stable interval and 2^1/2 is not. If you put it in the context of a justified dominant seventh chord 4:5:6:7, compared to the ET version it is profoundly stable. - Rainwarrior 17:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  7/5 and 10/7 are relatively consonant. They just sit there nicely. However, if you stack three large major seconds (9/8), which is what a tritone would literally be (an interval the width of three tones stacked), which is the same as stacking six perfect fifths and subtracting three octaves, or basically stacking prime 3 six times ignoring octaves, you get 729/512 and its inversion 1024/729, both of which are pretty dissonant. That's why the tritone is historically considered dissonant. It has to do with reaching far away using repetitions of the same prime 3, not with reaching nearby for those close friends prime 7 and prime 5. As another illustration, even stacking prime 3 just four times is dissonant. Adjusting for octaves, that gets you the Pythagorean Major Third, 81/64, which is more dissonant than 5/4, even though 5 is a higher prime. 38.86.48.38 (talk) 06:06, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tritone as irrational ratio 

message: I think that the musical examples section is getting a little out of hand again.  My suggestion: can we make the section "Music which explicitly mentions the tritone" which would include "Slayer" or call the section "Unusual uses of the tritone," which would include the retuned timpani in Fidelio (extremely unusual for its time).  And move the rest either to a new article "Prominent uses of the tritone" or more generally, "Prominent uses of particular musical intervals."  Thoughts? --Myke Cuthbert 01:06, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I cut the list down to pieces in which the tritone appears unusually or self-referentially.  Yes, there are lots of Metal pieces which feature tritones, but also lots of country songs, Lawrence Welk ballads, etc.  The Slayer reference could be returned, but does it use a tritone prominently anywhere except in its name?  The "Charmed" example seemed the only one from popular culture which explicitly linked a tritone to specific "evil" effect.  I think that if we had a musical example of Purple Haze or the opening chords of Elfman's "Simpsons," then they'd be worth mentioning in section on how the tritone is commonly used, but they're no more unusual than hundreds of other examples.  --Myke Cuthbert 21:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually (having just tried to give the article some sense of order), I think the best thing would be to incorporate these in the main text, noting why they are historical. In particular, this would be useful for the heavy metal examples (about which I know nothing)...which songs were the "first" to use the tritone that was "practically endemic" to black metal (I deleted that phrase, as the wealth of examples from other kinds of music make it clear there is no endemism here) and how did it become so associated with the genre? In general, instead of a list, putting in text gives you more context about why they are notable (e.g. first of its kind in such-and-such genre, or widely familiar, etc.). Maybe I'll get around to it someday. Rigadoun  (talk) 05:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Musical examples (getting out of hand again...) 

message: can someone please add a section to explain its function? Jackzhp 20:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Function of what chord? Hyacinth 20:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: function of chord

message: I thought this info from the recent Blizzcast about the use of the Tritone in World of Warcraft was interesting:
:"There's an interval in music known as a tritone ... it's been referred to in history as the "devil's interval" ... it's not quite consonant and it's certainly not terribly dissonant and it makes people feel ... uneasy without being harsh or jarring so I wrote all around that interval ... I'm playing a lot of games with that interval ... that interval and the cello ... that pallet of choir and harp ... blended all together to create the vocabulary for the Blood Elves." — 
Since this is the only citable mention that I know of of the use of the tritone in modern media, I thought it would be worth including. -Miskaton (talk) 15:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This really seems too trivial to mention. The only recent citable mention of the tritone? Really? — Gwalla | Talk 16:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, I agree with Gwalla. There certainly isn't any shortage of modern writing and scholarship on the tritone. Now it would be wonderful if someone had the time do dig through them and expand the article, but that's a different matter entirely. :) --Blehfu (talk) 18:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  World of Warcraft 

message: The tritone was never 5/7 in either Medieval or Renaissance music when the term first arose.  In the medieval period, it was 512/729 (8/9 x 8/9 x 8/9 --three tones of a tritone) in the content of Pythagorean tuning.  In that tuning, all other intervals are 2/3 and 3/4.  512/729 is startingly dissonant in that context.  The so-called equal-tempered in so tame in comparison that most contemporary musicians cannot understand what the original fuss was all about.  
In the Renaissance, it was 32/45.  A whole tone (8/9) higher than than the just major third (4/5).  Again, in the context of Renaissance just tuning, it seems rather jarring.
The big problem of the tritone in the original choral contexts is that it tended to disorient the chorus and its sense where the correct pitch should be placed.
71.210.0.143 (talk) 16:35, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The article didn't say that 7/5 was used in the Medieval or Renaissance periods, it simply listed 7/5 among just tritones. Hyacinth (talk) 08:12, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The ratios in just intonation 

message: What about 17:12? It's only slightly sharper than the equal tempered tritone. 151.103.236.139 (talk) 18:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What about it? Do you think it should be added to the article? Hyacinth (talk) 22:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: 17:12

message: It is definantly notable that a straight tritone is the main riff of the song "black sabbtah" by the epnonymous band, and that metal music in general is based around the tritone and its uses in the pentatonic scale and to a lower extent the blues scale.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.163.3.121 (talk) 06:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, even if a decade late. I am surprised that this is not discussed in the article. When I think of tritone out side of jazz, this is the exact song I think of. The tritone is foundational to metal. Jyg (talk) 05:51, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Black sabbath and metal 

message: Hello, I am kind of Newbie and I am aware a Simple English version is being written.  Still I started reading this article and there were scores of words that do not form part of my vocabulary.
Love,
Andreseso (talk) 10:39, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Such as? See Help:Contents/Links. Hyacinth (talk) 21:09, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Could you be a little more specific? I notice, for example, that User:Paolo.dL has recently begun making some changes in the introduction. Do you feel these are improvements, or have they made the article less comprehensible for you?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:34, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  I am unable to understand this article 

message: Aren't car horns deliberately tuned to the tritone?  This must be the main reason why they're duophonic.  Worth mentioning?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.109.11.182 (talk) 13:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: yes, i think i read that somewhere, car horns are usually tritones, and they're intended to be annoying, so someone's opinion is that this is the most dissonant interval  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.170.59.138 (talk) 20:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Car Horn 

message: In an edit summary, User:Paolo.dL wrote: "Thank you Jerome Kohl. Would you mind if I delete the reference to German language? Knowing it comes from Latin is more than enough. Specifying how the tritone is called in other languages does not seem relevant in this article."
:Please do delete the reference to the German/Latin term, or else I will be forced to list the Spanish, French, Albanian, Japanese, etc. terms as well. I'm not actually sure that the Latin term itself has any relevance in English. As a native English speaker myself, with graduate degrees in music earned at American institutions, I have never heard it used outside of musicological seminars and articles discussing Latin treatises.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:40, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I found the statement in the first section of the article. It was inserted by someone else, and I just moved it in the introduction. I believe you misinterpreted it: it did not state that "tritonus" was the Latin term. It listed it as another term (sometimes) used to indicate the tritone. Obviously this meant it was used in English, as this article is in English and all synonyms listed in the intro are supposed to be in English, unless otherwise specified. Initially, before my edits, the text specified that the term was often used in German as well, but I thought it was irrelevant information, and deleted it. Later, it was you who wrote it came from Latin, and inserted again the reference to German language! So, I really cannot understand why you wrote: "delete the reference to the German/Latin term, or else I will be forced to list the Spanish, French, ... terms as well". However, I am glad that you changed your mind. It's good to know that, in your opinion, this term is so rare that it does not deserve to be mentioned. I agree: let's delete it. Paolo.dL (talk) 18:50, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I did understand all that. When you moved that text, your edit summary questioned whether it was a German or Latin term. It is the term used in German (as well as in Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish, as can be determined from the interwiki links to the corresponding articles on the Wikis in those languages), though of course it is a borrowing of the Latin word. Your position is perfectly correct, in my opinion. I believe that whoever thought "tritonus" is used in English was wrong. My reference to adding other languages was a (poor) attempt at humour. My apologies for leading you astray.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:15, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I am sorry for not understanding immediately :-). I appreciate your attempt. It is extremely rare to find editors with friendly attitude. Thank you again for your contribution, and please do not stop with your attempts at humour. Paolo.dL (talk) 19:30, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Toward an English version of this article

message: I recently rearranged the article to make the introduction more complete and more easily understandable. However, I did not fix a logic fault which was already present in the text (I just moved it from first section into the intro). The logic fault is easy to detect: the "traditional" definition, given in the first sentence of the intro, clearly implies that both the augmented fourth (A4) and the diminished fifth (D5) are tritones, as both span 6 semitones (3 tones). However, the article states that D5 should not be called a tritone (unless A4=D5, as in 12-TET). There are three possibilities to solve this fault: 
# We accept the definition as it is: simple and clear (tritone = 3 tones = 6 semitones), and as a consequence we also accept that both A4 and D5 are tritones (even in tuning systems which assign them different sizes).
# We make the definition stricter. In short: tritone = A4. For instance: "the tritone is an interval spanning 3 tones, and encompassing ONLY 4 staff positions".
# We say that both definitions 1 and 2 are used by different authors. In this case, we also need to decide what one we give first, according to some valid criterion (the most commonly used one?).
In my opinion, the definition tritone = 3 tones = 6 semitones is correct. But since I trust the editors who wrote this article, I suspect that the strict definition tritone = A4 is ALSO true. So, I would discard solution 2, and suggest either the first or the third solution, but this is only my personal opinion, and I do not have enough information to take a decision. I need the opinion of an expert to fix this logic fault.
Paolo.dL (talk) 17:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: As with so many terms (not just musical ones!), the exact definition for "tritone" varies with time and, perhaps, place. The definition in the lede paragraph is the usual modern definition, which refers to the absolute distance in an equal-tempered conception (not necessarily in 12-EQ tuning) of the pitch space. This definition also applies in many historical periods where an equal-tempered conception is not applicable. When a distinction is made between "tritone" and "diminished fifth", it implies one or both of two things: (1) the absolute distances are different (because of the non-12-EQ tuning system used), or (2) the interval species are different. The latter condition is of particular concern to music theorists of the 16th century, when tuning debates were also of considerable importance. At that time, a sharp distinction was made between the tritonus which, as its name states, contains three consecutive whole tones, and the semidiapente (diminished fifth) whose name means "short of a (perfect) fifth" (not "half of a perfect fifth") and which is divided as semitone–whole tone–whole tone–semitone. This matters because of the types of semitones and whole tones used in just intonation, where two semitones do not necessarily add to exactly a whole tone. (Zarlino explains in his Istituzioni armoniche that in this context "semi" does not mean "half", but rather "less than", "falling short of". Therefore "semitone" means any interval in the range of half of a major second.) Interestingly, for earlier theorists (in the 13th century, for example) this was not an issue and they, like most modern theorists, used the word "tritone" to describe both the augmented fourth and diminished fifth. I qualify "modern theorists" with the word "most" because, although this applies to beginning-theory textbooks and most other contexts, just intonation has again become a concern for a certain number of theorists in the 20th and early 21st centuries, who make the same distinctions as their 16th-century forebears. This article as it stands does not appear to go into this (and of course some proper references would need to be found), but it is already so complicated, turgid, and technical that it has earned cries of "I can't understand this!" This poses a bit of a problem: how not to sacrifice accuracy while at the same time reducing the complexity. This seems to be something of a specialty for you, Paolo—or at least, I have seen you tackle this kind of problem before in music theory articles—so, for the moment at least, I shall stand back and watch the master at work.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:55, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for this outstanding and extremely interesting contribution. I will study interval species ASAP. In the meantime, I am not convinced (yet) that there is a difference between tone+tone+tone, semitone+tone+tone+semitone, or semitone*6. This is because "tone" is as ambiguous as "semitone". I mean, they are not specific intervals, but just "interval types" (the 12 semitones, 12 tones, 12 intervals composed of 3 semitones, etc.). In other words, unless you use 12-TET or a similar tuning system, there's no such a thing as a semitone, tone, "1.5-tone", "bi-tone", "2.5-tone", and tritone of fixed size... As explained in Pythagorean tuning, 1/4-comma meantone, and 5-limit tuning, every interval type in these tuning systems (except for unison and octave, of course) has at least two possible sizes. I'll think more about this. It may take time before I understand 100%. Paolo.dL (talk) 18:45, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a confusing topic, to be sure, and this may be an argument against even mentioning it in this article. However, in Zarlino and other 16th-century theorists, there is never any question of arbitrarily mixing the different sizes of tone and semitone. The specific use of the major and minor varieties of each is determined by the tuning system used—in Zarlino's case, what he calls the Ptolomaic syntonic diatonic. In any case, in most varieties of just intonation, the minor semitone is chromatic, and the major semitone diatonic, and the species of the semidiapente includes only major semitones, for example.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:00, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yet we do have a problem. We did not explain the reason why D5 is not a tritone. Everybody can easily understand or read elsewhere that D5 spans 6 semitones, so it clearly meets our definition of tritone. Even if we simply use tritone = 3 tones, rather than tritone = 3 tones = 6 semitones, everybody can see in our main article about intervals (Interval (music)#Main intervals) that both A4 and D5 span 6 semitones. By the way, both are classified as tritones in that table. The notion that 1 tone = 2 semitones (which implies 3 tones = 6 semitones) is too elementary and intuitively appealing to be ignored altogether. Paolo.dL (talk) 19:22, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

text: I see your point. The problem, then, is "our definition", which is drawn from a 12-tet conception of pitch space (according to which, properly speaking, our interval under discussion should be simply called "6"). It is becoming increasingly clear why beginners are finding it difficult to understand this article. "Tritone", on the surface of it, ought to mean "three tones", yet we are debating whether it is four or five, and whether four and five are really the same thing. Have we gone completely mad?! Well, no, because of course the entire terminological apparatus was devised under a system in which there were not twelve divisions of the octave, but seven (even if unequal ones). The conflict is between the historical (etymological) explanation, and the one that assumes common music-making practice of today. Surely the latter ought to be the starting place, if for no other reason than this is what most beginners coming to this article will be assuming. Explaining why D5 might not be regarded as a tritone is a more refined level of explanation, and should be relegated to a later part of the article, in my opinion. Under this plan, the lede and main definition can, I think, ignore this distinction, though the beginner still may find it confusing to learn that the interval may be either a fourth or a fifth. Quite apart from the historical issues, we need to keep in mind that musical context still may make a distinction, especially if we are going to keep on describing the tritone as a "dissonance". Even the beginner is entitled to know why a G4–C5 tritone resolves to F4 (or F4)–D5, whereas as G4–D5 tritone resolves instead to A4 (or A4–C5.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:46, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

text: At first glance, this formulation ("for some authors") seems to cover the situation admirably. The only thing I might suggest is that "composed of three whole tones", taken literally, could still be read as meaning "three M2s", the parenthetical equation to six semitones notwithstanding. What we are struggling with here is the contrast between an absolute distance (half an octave, measured on a logarithmic scale of course) as opposed to an interval measured by counting along the steps of a diatonic scale segment. In the former case, it would be just as true to say "3 whole tones (=8.5 seventeenths of an octave)", or any other mathematically equivalent expression, though this would hardly be helpful to anyone. In the latter case, we must assume that the reader already knows (or can discover this from a link to Diatonic scale) that the equivalent of a tritone can only be found as TTT or STTS, and not (for example) TSTS, or SSTT.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:43, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This is again an insightful contribution. Thank you. Clearly I was missing something. I need to digest everything, and this may keep some time. I do not dare to edit yet. Paolo.dL (talk) 20:28, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

text: Yes, both accurate and elegantly put. The terms "existing" (not a usual music-theory term, but useful in this context) and "incomposite" (a usual theory term but ordinarily found only in discussions of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance tuning theory) will need to be defined for the benefit of the beginner. Equally for the beginner's benefit, it should probably not be mentioned that the identical sounding interval cannot be called a tritone if the existing intervals are drawn from, e.g., 10-equal or 14-equal tuning, where the octave divided exactly in half is made up of interval of 5 and 7 "semitones", respectively.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:42, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evident logic fault in the introduction 

message: I dared to edit, according to Jerome Kohl's explanations and advices. I believe this fixes the logic fault. I did not use the words "existing" and "incomposite". If you think the article can be made clearer by using these terms, feel free to edit. I used the terms "strict" and "broad" to identify the two interpretations of the classical definition: TT = T+T+T. I don't know whether these terms are also used in the literature or not, but they seemed to be appropriate. I am sincerely grateful to Jerome Kohl for his outstanding contributions. I believe his historical review deserves to be published in the article. Paolo.dL (talk) 14:54, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fixed 

message: Really? What is the definition of "free" being used here?
The works of J. S. Bach, A. Vivaldi and others from the Baroque era are full of tritones.
Granted, it's not "free" use in the sense that the melodic theme of a piece will begin on a tritone.
216.31.219.19 (talk) 16:53, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: This certainly needs qualifying, doesn't it? I suspect the intended distinction is that in Bach, Vivaldi, et cie the tritone always requires resolution, whereas at the very beginning of the Romantic period (which as everybody knows occurred 11 May 1782, about 10 o'clock in the morning) this compulsory usage was abolished to general rejoicing. However, correcting this problem must start with a reliable source, and this may prove to be a tall order. Let us start by closely examining Persichetti's 1961 book, cited in its entirety at the end of that passage. If as I suspect it does not verify this claim, then a source must be demanded.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:09, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Free use of tritone started with Romantic period? 

message: These seem to be being used as names for the perfect and augmented fourths respectively (in Italian: "4ta min", "4: mag:") in a chart of intervals in Thomas Attwood's theoretical and compositional studies with Mozart. The diminished fourth still has this name ("4: dim:"). (The diminished and perfect fifths seem to be labelled the "false" and "true" fifth respectively: "5: falsa" and "5: vera".) In fact in the margin there is a note saying "why can't the fourth have a Superflua [augmented version]". Double sharp (talk) 14:40, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major and minor fourth? 

message: A lot of this article is copied verbatim from http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/diminished_fifth, which is "sourced from World Heritage Encyclopedia". That's why there is an odd clause that says "according to a rule explained elsewhere, but there is no explanation.
Bolaurent (talk) 22:18, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Or not. I notice that, at the bottom of the Gutenberg page it says that "World Heritage Encyclopedia content is assembled from numerous content providers, Open Access Publishing, and in compliance with The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., ..." (my bolding). This could easily mean that the content there was copied from Wikipedia, not the other way around. The missing "rule explained elsewhere" could just as easily be explained by a deletion of that material at some earlier point in time. Have you checked the edit history?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:44, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copied without credit 

message: I'll try to solve some of them (those I can) if I have time...
1. Inappropriate references Many sections lack any kind of references or have an insufficient number of them, and they often speak of very technical details which should require a proper reference. In the same way, some sections have way too much citations: for example; there's no need to cite 4 different books to say that "an augmented fourth is either 45/32 or 25/18".
2. Probable OR in the "Historical uses" section This sections makes many statements concerning the musical analysis of the pieces contained without referring to any sources (except for the Debussy piece), and links to the related pages (ex. the Siegfried opera don't provide sources for a musical analysis). While the comments may be right (sure, a tritone certainly doesn't mean "all is calm..."), they are not verifiable. Also, I think that the current section should be expended to talk more about the use of tritones in modern music.
3. Excessive use of abbreviations impedes clarity Using "A4" and "d5" repeatedly in the body of the text (the equations are another matter - but whether they should be used or not certainly isn't the problem we should worry about, given the other issues) impedes readability. 69.165.196.103 (talk) 04:35, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible problems as of January 2017 

message: Whilst very well sourced and written, must there really be such a  catalogue of the use of the tritone? Glissando1234567890 (talk) 19:21, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: If there are too many examples a reader may choose to ignore some of them. If there are not enough examples, that's much harder for the reader. Hyacinth (talk) 11:28, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Excessive exampling 

message: I noticed the Haluska quote mentioning Hindemith looks mangled, and found this edit from 2010, which added mention of the book into it. Is it supposed to look like that (i.e. is it part of the original)? It gives the impression that someone not familiar with Wiki markup tried to manually insert a reference into the article by typing "[28]". Is anyone able to advise? Thank you. Toccata quarta (talk) 19:38, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The editor who inserted that quotation, User:Hyacinth, is very familiar with Wiki markup. It looks to me as if there is a reference numeral in the original, and the editor has added the note to which it refers in square brackets after the numeral. It is a bit awkward, but I think saying it is "mangled" may be going too far. Perhaps the editorially bracketed insertion could simply replace the original reference-note numeral.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:46, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

text: This is the relevant edit: . Hyacinth (talk) 11:25, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quote? 

message: I just watched Adam Neely's Youtube video titled "The Great Myth of the Medieval Tritone Ban" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MhwGnq4N9o - It appears that Diabolus in Musica does not refer to the "Evilness" of the tritones but instead how hard it would be to sing and that the sound would be harsh to a listener's ears. Should we consider a rewrite on the Historical uses section to be more neutral and less referencing Diabolus in Musica as a literal translation of evil music, explaining this concept in a more complete way? SharkFinnedGirl (talk)
I agree - and I think the correction also belongs here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#Music 193.117.192.140 (talk) 23:29, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diabolos does not mean evil?