The Devil's Third
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The Devil's Third is a pair of musical notes separated by the interval of a tritone. The interval of a tritone was generally avoided until the twentieth century and is said to have been literally banned in Medieval times because it was believed to conjure the Devil. A good example of this sequence is the main riff to the song "Black Sabbath" by the metal band Black Sabbath on their debut album, Black Sabbath. Human hearing finds intervals to be pleasant sounding if the ratio of the frequencies of the two notes is simple, e.g. the perfect fifth with a ratio of 2:3, probably because they are easier for the brain to analyse. The jarring effect of the tritone is due to the complex frequency ratio, 32:45
