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Dun dun duuun! is a short three-chord musical phrase, or "sting", widely used in movies and television to indicate a moment of suspense. In modern productions it is often used as a joke effect or to invoke a nostalgic feeling. There are three main variations of the sting.
Its first documented use was in 1942 in CBS Radio's Suspense, where it was played at the end of the introduction of the first episode, The Burning Court .[ citation needed ] It is used to set the mood when the narrator recounts the protagonist looking through a book of famous poisoners through history, only to come across an image of his own wife. This version uses three descending chords. It was already in widespread use by this time, and may predate radio. [1]
Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring , features a similar three-note descending pattern. When it was used in the soundtrack of the 1940 movie Fantasia , Disney's version of the recording emphasised "two duns and a lingering duuun" at the end of a battle between dinosaurs. [1]
An example is heard in the film Young Frankenstein , [1] with the chord progression rising and then falling instead of all three chords falling.[ citation needed ] The Young Frankenstein version was used in the 2007 YouTube video Dramatic Chipmunk. [1]
The most widely used modern variation is the "Shock Horror (A)" effect recorded in 1983 by composer Dick Walter as part of a series of four vinyl albums of sound snippets known as The Editor's Companion. [1] This version is inverted from the Young Frankenstein pattern, using the notes E♭ - C - F♯, with the F♯ being especially discordant. Among its uses are Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , The Ren & Stimpy Show , Vyond, and The IT Crowd . [1]
A Shepard tone, named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the bass pitch of the tone moving upward or downward, it is referred to as the Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that seems to continually ascend or descend in pitch, yet which ultimately gets no higher or lower.
The 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120, commonly known as the Diabelli Variations, is a set of variations for the piano written between 1819 and 1823 by Ludwig van Beethoven on a waltz composed by Anton Diabelli. It forms the first part of Diabelli's publication Vaterländischer Künstlerverein, the second part consisting of 50 variations by 50 other composers. It is often considered to be one of the greatest sets of variations for keyboard along with Bach's Goldberg Variations.
An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. However, the term most often refers to the ancohemitonic symmetric scale composed of alternating whole and half steps, as shown at right. In classical theory, this symmetrical scale is commonly called the octatonic scale, although there are a total of 43 enharmonically inequivalent, transpositionally inequivalent eight-note sets.
In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces include classical compositions such as Ravel's Boléro and the Carol of the Bells, and popular songs such as John Lennon’s “Mind Games”(1973), Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's "I Feel Love" (1977), Henry Mancini's theme from Peter Gunn (1959), The Who's "Baba O'Riley" (1971), The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" (1997), and Flo Rida's "Low" (2007).
The Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331 / 300i, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a piano sonata in three movements.
In music theory, the circle of fifths is a way of organizing pitches as a sequence of perfect fifths. Starting on a C, and using the standard system of tuning for Western music, the sequence is: C, G, D, A, E, B, F♯/G♭, C♯/D♭, G♯/A♭, D♯/E♭, A♯/B♭, F, and C. This order places the most closely related key signatures adjacent to one another.
Lights Out is an American old-time radio program devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural.
In Western musical theory, a cadence is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards. A harmonic cadence is a progression of two or more chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music. A rhythmic cadence is a characteristic rhythmic pattern that indicates the end of a phrase. A cadence can be labeled "weak" or "strong" depending on the impression of finality it gives.
Scordatura is a tuning of a string instrument that is different from the normal, standard tuning. It typically attempts to allow special effects or unusual chords or timbre, or to make certain passages easier to play. It is common to notate the finger position as if played in regular tuning, while the actual pitch resulting is altered. When all the strings are tuned by the same interval up or down, as in the case of the viola in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, the part is transposed as a whole.
In jazz, comping is the chords, rhythms, and countermelodies that keyboard players, guitar players, or drummers use to support a musician's improvised solo or melody lines. It is also the action of accompanying, and the left-hand part of a solo pianist.
In music, a Barre chord is a type of chord on a guitar or other stringed instrument played by using one finger to press down multiple strings across a single fret of the fingerboard.
Open D tuning is an open tuning for the acoustic or electric guitar. The open string notes in this tuning are : D A D F♯ A D. It uses the three notes that form the triad of a D major chord: D, F♯ and A.
"The Cat Came Back" is a blues-folk gallows comedy song written by Harry S. Miller in 1893. It has since entered the world of folklore and became a famous children's song.
The Nocturnes, Op. 15 are a set of three nocturnes for solo piano written by Frédéric Chopin between 1830 and 1833. The work was published in January 1834, and was dedicated to Ferdinand Hiller. These nocturnes display a more personal approach to the nocturne form than that of the earlier Opus 9. The melodies and emotional depth of these nocturnes have thus been thought of as more "Chopinesque."
In music theory, the half-diminished seventh chord is a seventh chord composed of a root note, together with a minor third, a diminished fifth, and a minor seventh. For example, the half-diminished seventh chord built on B, commonly written as Bm7(♭5), or Bø7, has pitches B-D-F-A:
A sting, sometimes called a sounder, is a short musical phrase, primarily used in broadcasting and films as a form of punctuation. For example, a sting might be used to introduce a regular section of a show, indicate the end of a scene, or indicate that a dramatic climax is imminent. A classic sting is the "Dun dun duuun!" played to indicate a period of suspense.
"Xmas Steps" or "Christmas Steps" is a song by Scottish post-rock group Mogwai. The original version of the song is the lead track from the 1998 EP No Education = No Future , and a slightly different version appears on the 1999 album Come On Die Young.
Dramatic Chipmunk is a viral Internet video. The video is a 5-second clip of a prairie dog turning its head while the camera zooms in and dramatic music is played.
Franz Schubert's last three piano sonatas, D 958, 959 and 960, are his last major compositions for solo piano. They were written during the last months of his life, between the spring and autumn of 1828, but were not published until about ten years after his death, in 1838–39. Like the rest of Schubert's piano sonatas, they were mostly neglected in the 19th century. By the late 20th century, however, public and critical opinion had changed, and these sonatas are now considered among the most important of the composer's mature masterpieces. They are part of the core piano repertoire, appearing regularly on concert programs and recordings.
The Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60, completed by Johannes Brahms in 1875, is scored for piano, violin, viola and cello. It is sometimes called the Werther Quartet after Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. The premiere took place in Vienna on November 18, 1875, to an anxious public. Richard Wagner and his wife Cosima were in attendance.
