âDevilâs Intervalâ Makes âUnsolved Mysteriesâ Theme Unforgettably Spooky
July 9, 2020
- Author
- Jay Pfeifer
51čÙÍű Professor and Music Department Chair Neil Lerner was quoted in the this past weekend.
Lerner was asked why the theme song to the long-runningâand recently rebootedâTV show âUnsolved Mysteriesâ was so spooky. (New episodes of âUnsolved Mysteriesâ premiered on Netflix last week. The reboot changes a few thingsâno host, for exampleâbut the theme song remains the same.)
Lerner, who teaches a âMusic and Sound In Horror Filmâ class, attributes the power of the âMysteriesâ theme to the dissonant tritone, known as the âdevilâs interval.â
Horror movie fans will also note that the theme echoes another famously eerie piece of music: The theme to 70s horror classic, âHalloween.â
âThe music in âUnsolved Mysteriesâ has the [same] repetitionâ as the â he says. âThat droning and repeating [in the âUnsolved Mysteriesâ theme] is part of what makes it ominous. It seems impervious to moving anywhere, and when it does move, it moves into really unexpected places, which is what the âHalloweenâ theme does.â