{"id":14111,"date":"2026-02-28T09:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T16:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=14111"},"modified":"2026-04-27T09:49:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:49:52","slug":"the-tritone-of-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2026\/02\/28\/the-tritone-of-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"The Devil&#8217;s Tone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/science\/article\/black-sabbath-devils-interval\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">from National Geographic<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The science behind why Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s music sounded \u2018satanic\u2019<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>The tritone has been blamed for chaos, banned by choirs, and embraced by metalheads. Here\u2019s what the &#8216;devil&#8217;s interval&#8217; really does to your brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By Simon Ingram<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Devil\u2019s Tritone \u2013 EXPLAINED (And\u2026I think my guitar is possessed)\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nLMBV59iTv0?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The idea that two simple notes\u2014not a song, just tones\u2014could be \u201cbanned\u201c may seem ludicrous. But that\u2019s the legend behind the crushing opening riff of Black Sabbath\u2019s 1970 debut. With just three ominous notes, guitarist Tony Iommi, alongside the anguished vocals of the late Ozzy Osbourne, unleashed a sound so unsettling it was said to have been forbidden for centuries.\u201cThose notes were banned many years ago,\u201d Iommi told the BBC in 2014. \u201cIt\u2019s supposed to have been a satanic thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While rock legend has never been the most reliable (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c72ppzwek90o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">see: Ozzy and the bat<\/a>), this one does have a whisper of truth.&nbsp;<em>Black Sabbath<\/em>&nbsp;recruited what music theorists refer to as the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/dictionary\/english\/tritone\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u2018tritone<\/a>,\u2019 \u2014a dissonant interval once avoided by medieval choirs and now known in music lore as the \u201cdevil\u2019s interval.\u201d Also referred to as the augmented fourth, diminished fifth, or sharp eleven, the tritone spans three whole tones on a scale, creating a clashing, unstable sound that has long made listeners squirm. But what is it about this ancient musical interval that has unnerved audiences for centuries\u2014and why does it still strike such a primal chord?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/science\/article\/black-sabbath-devils-interval\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click to continue reading at Nat Geo<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from National Geographic The science behind why Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s music sounded \u2018satanic\u2019 The tritone has been blamed for chaos, banned by choirs, and embraced by metalheads. Here\u2019s what the &#8216;devil&#8217;s interval&#8217; really does to your brain. By Simon Ingram The idea that two simple notes\u2014not a song, just tones\u2014could be \u201cbanned\u201c may [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art","category-weirdness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14111"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14113,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14111\/revisions\/14113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}