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The Music Room => General Classical Music Discussion => The Polling Station => Topic started by: oyasumi on October 30, 2012, 08:03:49 AM

Poll
Question: Favorite Tritone
Option 1: C - F# votes: 7
Option 2: C# - G votes: 2
Option 3: D - G# votes: 2
Option 4: D# - A votes: 1
Option 5: E - A# votes: 1
Option 6: F - B votes: 2
Title: Favorite Tritone
Post by: oyasumi on October 30, 2012, 08:03:49 AM
Everyone has one, right?
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: Karl Henning on October 30, 2012, 09:09:07 AM
Had to go with D - G#
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: ibanezmonster on October 30, 2012, 09:11:17 AM
It was a hard choice between C-F# and F-B. They sound so incredibly different, yet... the same. Mysterious.
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: Karl Henning on October 30, 2012, 09:12:23 AM
I like it even better spelled C - Gb, though. (Just saying.)
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: ibanezmonster on October 30, 2012, 09:17:26 AM
I like it best spelled, ummm...

Asss Ebbbbbbbbbb  :-X

or maybe not.
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: madaboutmahler on November 05, 2012, 01:52:33 PM
A - D# for me. Mysterious with perhaps a hint of subtle optimism? One that I use much it seems! :)
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: listener on November 06, 2012, 12:35:30 AM
a Sibelius 4th?
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: AdamFromWashington on January 01, 2013, 10:53:28 PM
C - F# is the first Tritone I ever learned, and will always hold a special place in my heart.  :)
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: nochmal on January 02, 2013, 01:04:55 PM
What Adam said, even if that was only HIS GUESS geddit? geddit??
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: Fagotterdämmerung on December 16, 2014, 03:49:42 PM
  A most beloved interval. If at first you don't succeed...

  It's got to be F and B. Their existence in a white-note C Major scale reminds even the most placid harmonists no place is safe.
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: not edward on December 16, 2014, 04:11:14 PM
G-C# for the first bars of Nuages Gris.
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: Brian on December 16, 2014, 05:01:15 PM
Once outside San Antonio I heard a mariachi band where the bass player insisted on playing tritones the entire time. Mariachi bass typically follows the one-two one-two beat of the music with a very simple series of chords. But every progression this dude playing was a tritone. Nonstop tritones. It fascinated me. I stood rapt for probably 20 minutes listening to this guy anchor literally every single song with bass tritones. I have never forgotten it. Every month or so, and certainly every time I hear mariachi or simple one-two folk music, in the back of my head someone starts playing bass...and every progression is a tritone...
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: jochanaan on December 17, 2014, 06:55:18 AM
G-Db--the one in Mars from Holst's The Planets. ;D
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: Karl Henning on December 17, 2014, 08:42:10 AM
Sweet!
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: Fagotterdämmerung on December 17, 2014, 09:41:11 AM
Quote from: Brian on December 16, 2014, 05:01:15 PM
Once outside San Antonio I heard a mariachi band where the bass player insisted on playing tritones the entire time. Mariachi bass typically follows the one-two one-two beat of the music with a very simple series of chords. But every progression this dude playing was a tritone. Nonstop tritones. It fascinated me. I stood rapt for probably 20 minutes listening to this guy anchor literally every single song with bass tritones. I have never forgotten it. Every month or so, and certainly every time I hear mariachi or simple one-two folk music, in the back of my head someone starts playing bass...and every progression is a tritone...

That is bizarre. Was the progression just back and forth between two chords at a tritone distant ( e.g. C Major to F# Major ) or was it like a progression through diminished fifths ( e.g. G-dim, C-cim, F-dim, etc. )?
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: Cato on December 23, 2014, 03:52:46 AM
Quote from: Brian on December 16, 2014, 05:01:15 PM
Once outside San Antonio I heard a mariachi band where the bass player insisted on playing tritones the entire time. Mariachi bass typically follows the one-two one-two beat of the music with a very simple series of chords. But every progression this dude playing was a tritone. Nonstop tritones. It fascinated me. I stood rapt for probably 20 minutes listening to this guy anchor literally every single song with bass tritones. I have never forgotten it. Every month or so, and certainly every time I hear mariachi or simple one-two folk music, in the back of my head someone starts playing bass...and every progression is a tritone...

Did he possibly think he was playing fifths?

Quote from: Fagotterdämmerung on December 17, 2014, 09:41:11 AM
That is bizarre. Was the progression just back and forth between two chords at a tritone distant ( e.g. C Major to F# Major ) or was it like a progression through diminished fifths ( e.g. G-dim, C-cim, F-dim, etc. )?

This man might be a Mariachi Charles Ives!   :D
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: Luke on December 23, 2014, 04:17:13 AM
Well, C-F# is hallowed because of Petrouchka and the War Requiem amongst others, but then D-G# is the spectacular hinge around which the first movement of Alkan's Concerto for solo piano hangs. And then F-B is so pivotal in Berg (think Wozzeck, think, especially, of the Lyric Suite, of which it is the cryptographically-hidden core, Hannah Fuchs-Robetin, where H=B)... How to choose.

C-F#, because it's the one used in abstracted music examples, too, e.g to illustrate Messiaen's chord of the added augmented fourth, with its resolution, in the Technique de mon langage musical. I'm always a sucker for music examples...!  :-[
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: Brian on December 23, 2014, 08:22:05 AM
Quote from: Fagotterdämmerung on December 17, 2014, 09:41:11 AM
That is bizarre. Was the progression just back and forth between two chords at a tritone distant ( e.g. C Major to F# Major ) or was it like a progression through diminished fifths ( e.g. G-dim, C-cim, F-dim, etc. )?
Mariachi bass is a 1-2, 1-2, 2-1, 2-1 simple progression. So for example, it might typically be G, C, G, C, C, G, C, G, [repeat]. But in this case, yes, it would G, C#, G, C#, C, F#, C, F# [repeat]!

Quote from: Cato on December 23, 2014, 03:52:46 AM
Did he possibly think he was playing fifths?
See above, he would actually play two tritones based around the "correct" chords! I think he was a rogue mariachi genius!
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: jochanaan on December 30, 2014, 07:22:49 PM
Quote from: Cato on December 23, 2014, 03:52:46 AM
Did he possibly think he was playing fifths?
Maybe he was drinking them. :o :laugh:
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: EigenUser on December 31, 2014, 02:35:34 AM
For me, it's a tie between Eb-A and D-G#. Reason? The 'out-of-tune' violin at the start of the 3rd movement of Bartok's Contrasts.
Title: Re: Favorite Tritone
Post by: petrarch on January 01, 2015, 08:48:46 AM
Tie between the C#-G the opening motif of Varèse's Density 21.5 temporarily rests with and the stacked C#-G/F#-C in the opening of Stockhausen's Klavierstuck IX.