Devilish Air-Raid Sirens
To judge by their complaints, the people of England hate the air-raid alarms more than they hate air raids, says "Time.’ Recently the Ministry for Home Security bowed to the popular will, and reduced as much as it could the time of sounding each alarm-from two minutes to one, No haphazard noisemakers are Britain’s wailing sirens. Sounded by air pressure operating on electric oscillators, they produce a discord which in the Middle Ages was regarded as the work of the devil. This discord is the augmented fourth (example: C and F sharp on the piano), was called the tritone because it spans three whole tones. The tritone was banned in sacred music, thus giving rise to a maxim: "Mi contra fa est diabolus in musica" (The tritone is the devil in music). When the sirens, beginning on a sweet major third or fitth, slip up and down into the blood-curdling tritone, it sounds that way to Londoners.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 74, 22 November 1940, Page 16
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160Devilish Air-Raid Sirens New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 74, 22 November 1940, Page 16
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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