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The case files of the legend • expert report

The tritone in Insane Baroque Blaze

Report dated August 24, 2026 • instrumental track by Nando Valle, released August 12, 2026 (ISRC QZNJV2617176)

The artist bet there were none. We went and measured.

What the tritone is

The tritone is the interval of six semitones — exactly half an octave. It is the only interval that splits the scale down the middle, and that is why it does not resolve: it hangs there, unstable, asking for something to follow. Medieval theory nicknamed it diabolus in musica, "the devil in music," and the counterpoint teaching of the period told you to avoid it. C and F# make one. B and F do too.

One caveat, because these case files do not tolerate exaggeration: the Church never banned the interval by decree — the story about excommunicating anyone who played it is later folklore. Pérotin, in the thirteenth century, wrote sung tritones. What does exist is the counterpoint rule that avoids it, and the nickname, which has come through seven hundred years intact. In the case files of the legend, this interval is the object of the transfer clause: the debt attaches to whoever records the forbidden interval inside baroque counterpoint.

Method

The measurement was not done by ear. It was done over automatic transcription, along two independent routes, so that each would serve as a cross-check on the other:

• Source separation: Demucs htdemucs_6s, to isolate guitar and bass from the rest of the mix.
• Route A — Basic Pitch, the automatic transcription network from Spotify's Audio Intelligence Lab, in three passes with different parameters: solo, a 40 ms cutoff, and a pass focused on the low register.
• Route B — AnthemScore, a commercial engine with a completely different architecture. This is the cross-check.
• Counting criteria: a melodic tritone = two consecutive notes with interval class 6 — the tritone at any octave — where the next note begins at most 0.6 s after the previous one ends; a harmonic tritone = two notes sounding together for at least 30 ms with interval class 6. (Correction, 2026-08-25: until this date the melodic rule was described as "six semitones apart". The detector always used interval class 6, as the harmonic rule already stated. The figures in the table did not change; the description simply did not allow them to be reproduced.)

Reproduce it

The detector and the five transcribed MIDI files are published. Nothing needs to be reimplemented — the figures in the table below come out of these files:

• detecta_tritono.py — the detector, exactly as used
• guitar_basic_pitch.mid · guitar_40ms.mid · guitar_registro_grave.mid · guitar_anthemscore.mid
• bass_basic_pitch.mid — the bass line, the internal control: same method, same track, two melodic tritones and no harmonic ones

Single dependency: pip install pretty_midi. Then:

python detecta_tritono.py guitar_basic_pitch.mid guitar_40ms.mid guitar_registro_grave.mid guitar_anthemscore.mid

The output gives the note count, the melodic tritones and the harmonic ones for each file, with the timestamp and the two pitches of every occurrence. If you get a different number from the one published here, the error is ours and we want to hear about it.

The numbers

The full passes of the two architectures return 83, 91 and 80 melodic tritones on the guitar. The pass restricted to the low register, with 1,133 notes against the 1,735 of the full one, returns 49 — which is why the four results are given per file rather than as a single range. This is not an artifact of one transcriber: the two engines are independent. On the bass, almost nothing — 2 melodic and 0 harmonic. The interval lives in the guitar line, which is exactly where the legend puts it.

The finding

The first tritone sits at 0:01.5 — C#4 to G4: the tonic leaping to the forbidden interval.

Occurrences come in clusters between 0:01.5 and 0:02.1, then at 0:04.1, 0:04.8, and between 0:06.2 and 0:06.7 — and continue through the whole track.

Theoretical coherence

The track is in C# harmonic minor — the analysis registers the presence of B and B#, and an independent key reading gives C# minor at 148 bpm. That scale carries two structural tritone pairs: D#–A and B#–F#. The pairs actually measured in the track match what the scale predicts: C#–G, A#–E, B–F and D#–A.

In other words: the interval was not smuggled into the music. It is a consequence of the scale chosen — which is the baroque scale of choice when the baroque wants to sound sinister. What the measurement shows is that it does not merely brush past: it appears by the dozen, and it opens the piece.

Honest caveats

A report that does not declare its own limits is not a report. It is advertising.

• The measurement was made over transcription, not over raw audio. Basic Pitch and AnthemScore produce individual false positives — ghost notes, wrong octaves, duplicated attacks.
• The conclusion rests on the convergence of two independent engines and on the order of magnitude (dozens), not on any single note. No specific occurrence in this count should be taken as certain on its own — except the three anyone can verify by ear, above.
• Whoever measured does not listen: they measure. Auditory confirmation belongs to whoever is listening. The easiest checkpoints are marked on purpose.

Consequence for the case files

The transfer clause — "the debt attaches to whoever records the forbidden interval" — stops being a wager and becomes an auditable fact. Any musician can check it. So can any listener.

The transfer clause sits at second one-and-a-half of the track. Check it.

And as the case files record: every performance of the track pays down an installment.

The Hidden Instrument — the documented essay on Paganini →
Official track page, with every platform →