That’s why this same interval appears on the violin at the start of Saint Saëns’ Danse Macabre and it continued to instil fear in the minds of many parents when embraced by heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath and Slayer.Ĭhromatic notes, as featured in the ominous Shark Theme in John Williams’ score to Jaws – one of the most instantly recognisable and frequently quoted themes in the whole of film music – can also send shivers down the spine.
What makes music scary? Eerie intervalsĬertain intervals are scary because they throw the conventions of music harmony and theory into disarray. One, the tritone, was considered so disconcerting that it was called diabolus in musica (the devil in music) by medieval theorists, and avoided at all costs! From the suspense-building Jaws theme to the screeching strings used in the notorious shower scene in Psycho, learn more about the techniques that give music the power to scare.
