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Sound Clip: Shepard Tone by Roger Shepard
This is a classic sound oddity and illusion. Or is it? There are some corrections to this post with much discussion, see below and follow the trail of comments to clarify the inaccuracies.
Originally posted:
“It is rumored to be called the “devil’s tone” by the Catholic church. The Shepard tone is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the base pitch of the tone moving upwards or downwards, it is referred to as the
Shepard Scale. This creates an auditory illusion that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower.”
Corrections here and below in comments from Brent Williams:
“Hi Margaret.
“Baned by the Catholic Church“, about a Shepard-Risset Glissando. This post contained links to certain webpages, but when the post went up (even before it was moderated) the links were missing. Just in case you want to put them up for your readers, here they are:
The original source page for this sound file is here <http://gloumouth1.free.fr/test/paradoxe/index.html>. It is in French.
You can find the Wiki source page here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DescenteInfinie.ogg>. This contains a little more info on the sound. This is where I confirmed that the sound is a minor chord of synchronised Shepard-Risset glissandi.
Read about Diana Deutsch here <http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/deutsch_research1.php#Introduction.php>. She is currently a Professor at UCSD.
All the best, and please continue with your excellent website.
Brent Williams”
i thought the “devil’s tone” was the diminished fifth, or tritone. it was called that because the unsettling sound was seen as a flaw in the otherwise perfect musical system..
anyway, this is a cool illusion, and is especially effective using filtered noise, instead of sine waves.
You’re probably right, who can trust rumors anyhow! I think this is where I made the connection.
“The tritone paradox is an auditory illusion in which a sequentially played pair of Shepard tones separated by an interval of a tritone, or half octave, is heard as ascending by some people and as descending by others.”
the devil’s tone is the tritone not the Shepard’s tone
Is this true:
“The tritone paradox is an auditory illusion in which a sequentially played pair of Shepard tones separated by an interval of a tritone, or half octave, is heard as ascending by some people and as descending by others.”
I hear descending.
Sounds like the drone from jet engines.
Great post.
this is really creepy.
why can’t I download it?
This would be perfect to be played in a haunted house.
Greetings everybody. Get ready for a long-winded reply…
Firstly, Travis, the tritone is a diminished fourth (not fifth). Eg: the interval of C and F#. It is called the tritone because it is an interval of three tones or 6 semitones. This is indeed what people have referred to as the “devil tone”, among other nasty names. However, it was considered evil long before the Catholic Church deemed it such (in their usual blinkered reactionary fashion). A lecturer of mine once quoted an ancient greek text, that described the tritone as a sound (I’m paraphrasing a translation here!) “so foul as to seem to emanate from the depths of hell itself”. I really wish I could remember who said this, (and indeed what was said!) – sorry. Anyhow, it was the ancient greeks that at least classified this sound as sinister, or “bad”. On this subject, It seems to me that without dissonance, we would have no opposite state to consonance, rendering both concepts meaningless.
In her reply, Margaret quotes a Wikipedia page, or at least text that was used on the Wiki page for “Tritone Paradox”:
“The tritone paradox is an auditory illusion in which a sequentially played pair of Shepard tones separated by an interval of a tritone, or half octave, is heard as ascending by some people and as descending by others.”
The tritone paradox is a recognised phenomenon identified by psychologist Diana Deutsch. It is an auditory illusion corresponding in nature to the optical illusion known as a “Necker Cube”, which is a line drawing of a cube in perspective that contains no depth perception information. The well-known effect of this is that we can actively change our perception to alternate which of the facing planes is the front face of the cube, but we cannot see both as the front face at the same time. Similarly, with the tritone paradox, identical tones can be heard by different listeners as either a descending or ascending interval. It is also possible for us to alter our perception to hear either an ascending or descending sequence, but it seems it is harder for people to achieve this in the auditory domain than in the visual.
Regardless, the audio example here is of a continuous Shepard-Risset glissando (not a Shepard scale as stated). The source page for this sound file is here . It is in French. You can find the Wiki source page here . The sound example is also composed of a minor chord of glissandi, not just of a single Shepard-Risset glissando. It is the inherent shift in amplitudes (or loudness, determined by a logarithmic bell curve centred at a fixed frequency) of the different octave frequencies that causes the illusion that the pitches are continuously descending, but ultimately going nowhere.
The score seems to indicate this is an ascending glissando of Shepard tones, but I don’t think this is the case. I’m not sure if this score relates to the sound example – maybe Margaret could shed some light on this.
The tritone, or devil’s tone, the tritone paradox, the Shepard scale and the continuous Risset glissando are all separate concepts.
You can read more about the work of Diana Deutsch here . Despite the academic snobbery surrounding Wikipedia, I do think it is an excellent resource. And, hey, it’s the people’s encyclopedia, which is what the internet should be all about. You have to be careful though. Once a friend of mine edited the Rolling Stones Wikipedia page – He and I were listed as band members for about 30 minutes until someone restored the correct info!
By the way, thanks for your work on the Sound is Art site, Margaret. I dig it, and I spend far to much time listening to your posts rather than working on my research.
Cheers,
Brent.
In my reply, it seems as though the links I refer to disappeared when I submitted. Not sure why this is, but I can provide them to this site via email if you wish….
Cheers,
Brent
Please correct this post…you are continuing to loose notary as a blog dedicated to “sound art”.
The devil’s tone is the tri-tone, not the shepherds tone.
Thanks to Brent for clearing it up.
Hi Kyle,
Thanks for your input. You comment is kind of extreme. I posted all of Brent’s words including updating the original post with his specific links and comments. I was thinking that being honest with my errors and showing the corrections would be a good way to satisfy my inaccuracies. Please tell me how else I can remedy this.
Sincerely,
Margaret
good one!
Sounds very TRON soundtracky
Thanks for having quoted this illusion that I had programmed… I did it 5 years ago, but I can see that this sound is still alive.
G1.
You can also hear Shepard tones as the James Tenney piece “for ann (rising)” I wrote and performed a “live” implementation of it in 1988 on an Amiga, which had the ability to change the separating interval, which in his case was phi/1, so as to get different effects. It’s a fascinating piece to hear for a very long time, as your ears try to follow the tone up to its highest frequency, then jump down to catch on a lower rising tone.
A Tritone really is a diminished fifth – or enharmonically, an augmented forth, at least in 12 tone equal temperament. That temperament probably didn’t exist at the time of the “Devil” condemnation, though. Most intervals near 600 cents sound pretty alien, because it’s a big gap in the harmonic sequence (11th harmonic comes closest first).
I made some more Shepard tones recently for the WFMU Locked Groove record “Running in Place,” some ascending, some descending. Shepard tones seemed a natural for a locked groove record!
That has been a lavish gift.
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Cool paradox!!!
Am i the only one who hears a “bomb” sound at 0:19, 0:39 and at 0:59-1:00(don’t know if it reoccurs)?
Hi, just wanted to clarify. Saw this page on google.
Brent said the tri-tone is a “diminished fourth,” it is actually an augmented fourth, which is enharmonically the same thing as a diminished fifth.
A “diminished fourth” from C would be Fb or E natural, which is actually a Major third. An AUGMENTED fourth from C would be F#, as augmented means to increase or AUGMENT the distance between notes, diminished means to decrease or DIMINISH the space between notes. Thus a diminished fifth above C is Gb, which is enharmonically the same note as F#.
Happy Trails.