Kefan Chen

Professor Elizabeth Teret; Professor Liz Lamour

Music Acoustics

August 3, 2020

Ladder of the Infinite Climb

The "Shepard Tone" auditory illusion, named after scientist Roger Shepard, is composed

of three groups of rising tones: the intensity of high tones gradually decreases, the loudness of

middle tones does not change, and the bass tones become louder. This is an extremely important

invention in the field of both science and art. Before Shepard Tone was formally proposed, music

master Bach and well-known graphic artist Escher already used this idea in their works. In

today's music field, Shepard Tone is also used in filmmaking and film scoring.

Shepard Tone 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 (Shepard tone, Web),

it begins with a low volume C4, which is almost inaudible, and a loud C5. Next, the C4 will go

to become a louder C#4, and the C5 will become a quieter C#5. By analogy, each time two tones

move upwards at the same time, the volume of the low-frequency sound increases slightly, and

the volume of the high-frequency sound decreases slightly until the two tones reach F#4 and

F#5; the two-tone volume is equal, and the twelfth tone would be a loud B4 and an almost

inaudible B5 with the addition of an almost inaudible B3. The thirteenth tone would then be the

same as the first. Then, B5 fades out and stops playing, B3 becomes C4 in the new loop, and B4

becomes C5 in the new loop. At this point, the old cycle ends, and a new cycle begins. It is a

repetition of a melody, so although its pitch does not change in the cycle, it creates an illusion
that it has been rising, just like the red and blue turning bar lights at the door of a barbershop on

the street, that look like they are spiraling upward, but are actually not moving. Many artists

applied similar ideas to their works before Shepard Tone was proposed, such as Escher's

painting: "Scaffold Ascending and Descending" (1960).

Maurits Cornelis Escher, born in the small city of Leeuwarden in the north of the

Netherlands, grew up in a prosperous household as the fifth son of a civil engineer who was a

senior official at the Department of Public Works (Sooke, Web). He is considered one of the

world's most famous graphic artists. His art is admired by millions of people all over the world,

and his work in 1960: "Scaffold Ascending and Descending", gave us a visual illusion that is

similar to the auditory illusion built by Shepard Scale. This triangle-connected ladder has people

climbing up on the left side and descending downstairs on the right side. However, in space, we

cannot tell where the highest point of the stairs is and where the lowest point is. The ladder

seems to rise and fall infinitely. Alastair Sooke, the art critic of The Daily Telegraph, states that:

Indeed, decades after "the hell that was Arnhem," as Escher later described his

schooldays, he made a number of works featuring versions of the institution's dramatic

staircase, which he had ascended so frequently as a boy. The resemblance between the

school's staircase in reality and the structures in Escher's prints is remarkable.

(Sooke, Web)

The internal space of a distorted space can never exist in reality. It is dominated by stairs

sprouting in all directions and is full of expressionlessness.

Johann Sebasian Bach, a famous musician in the Baroque period, has applied this kind

of hearing illusion like Shepard Tone in his own works to increase the suspense and tension
between notes. One of the most well-known works is Canones diversi: Canon 5 a 2-Per tonos in

Musical Offering, BWV 1079. Each of the canons in the Music Offering was, for its theme, a

different variant of the King's Theme—a short musical theme given by Frederick The Great,

King of Prussia. The "Canon per Tonos" is the one canon in the Musical Offering which is

particularly unusual (Hofstadter, 10).

This canon consists of three parts. The highest voice is a variation on the Royal Theme,

and the lower two voices provide a canonized harmony based on the second theme. The lower

one of the two voices sings the theme in C minor, while the higher one sings the same theme

above the fifth. As for why the whole song can be written with three lines, it is because every

time it reaches the repetition mark, the next sound is one whole tone higher than the original,

which causes the key to change once for each repetition, so it's no longer in the key of C minor,

but now is in D minor. Somehow Bach has contrived to modulate right under the listener's nose.

For example, here, the first repeated mark is B, and the second repeated mark is C#. Then a new

round of repetition starts from C#, singing the rising melody. Magically, after precisely six such

modulations, the original key of C minor has been restored. All the voices are exactly an octave

higher than they were at the beginning (Hofstadter, 10). In the blank space of the score, Bach

wrote: "The transfer will increase, and the glory of the king will also increase," and Bach

relished the implication that this process can go on indefinitely is inscribed as "Ascendenteque

Modulatione ascendat Gloria Regis" (as the modulation rises, so may the King's glory). ("The

Musical Offering," Web).

After the Shepard Tone was proposed by psychologist Roger Shepard, "This wonderful

musical discovery allows the Endlessly Rising Canon to be played in such a way that it joins
back onto itself after going 'up' an octave" (Hofstadter, 719). Although Bach's canon was created

before the Shepard Tone was officially proposed, it is interesting that he himself was aware of

the existence of such a scale to some extent, and used the general principle of Shepard Tone

many times in his works, such as his Fugue in G Minor for organ.

Bach and Escher are playing one single theme in two different "keys": music and art

(Hofstadter, 13). The Shepard Tone seems to provide a scientific theory for similar, "strange

loops" that have caused people's illusions for many years, explaining how they happen

acoustically. Therefore, the Shepard Tone expresses this single theme in the "key" of science.

Nowadays, the endless scale illusion, obtained by cyclically repeating a chromatic scale made up

of Shepard Tones, has been used in a variety of musical works, such as movie soundtracks

(Vernooij, Web). It creates the illusion of continuously swelling sound, which can build tension

or suspense (McGregor, Web). Therefore, "Shepard Tone," a specialized and infrequent term that

belongs to the area of science and music, has suddenly become a popular and widely used word

in the mass entertainment industry. This phenomenon can be attributed to the director

Christopher Nolan and the soundtrack master, Hans Zimmer, and one of his latest works,

"Dunkirk."

Nolan has always been good at using nonlinear narrative structures to create exciting

feelings. From "Shards of Memory", "Inception" to "Interstellar", this has become Nolan's

signature. "Dunkirk" is no exception, as the three timelines that take place in the sea, land, and

air are intertwined, the fragmented plot has increased the tension of the film. In fact, when you

travel through the three timelines in fear with the exciting soundtrack, you have fallen into the

"sound trap" of the director and the soundtrack. Shortly after the opening of the movie, with the
bombing of German fighters, a high melody lifts the audience's hearts to their throats. This is

actually the soundtrack master, Hans Zimmer's, use of "Shepard Tone" to create an illusion that

the pitch is constantly rising, which makes the audience feel like they are sitting on pins and

needles. "Shepard Tone" can be the invisible protagonist in "Dunkirk", as even the entire movie

is built around it. When Nolan accepted an interview with Business Insider, he revealed that the

script of "Dunkirk" is mainly based on the principle of "Shepard Tone":

It's an illusion where there's a continuing ascension of tone. It's a corkscrew effect. It's

always going up and up and up, but it never goes outside of its range. And I wrote the

["Dunkirk"] script according to that principle. I interwove the three timelines in such a

way that there's a continual feeling of intensity. Increasing intensity. So I wanted to

build the music on similar mathematical principals. So there's a fusion of music and

sound effects and picture that we've never been able to achieve before.

(Guerrasio, Web)

It has to be said that the use of this acoustic technique in modern movies creates a psychological

and physical feeling for people that is different from the purely musical soundtrack. Music

Psychology and neuroscience have been interested in this particular psychoacoustic

phenomenon, which is caused by Shepard Tones. In Eveline Vernooij, Angelo Orcalli, Franco

Fabbro and Cristiano Crescentini's study, they investigated the emotional states induced by the

Shepard-Risset glissando, a variant of the Shepard scale. They found that:

The results show that negative emotions were most strongly evoked during listening to

each of the stimuli. We also found that the Shepard-Risset glissando illusion, both

within the aesthetic context of a musical composition and on its own, was capable of
 evoking disruption of equilibrium, frequently leading to the associated feeling of

falling. Moreover, generally for the Shepard-Risset glissando illusion, higher negative

emotional ratings were given by individuals who had experienced a feeling of

disturbance of equilibrium relative to those who had not had this experience

These findings suggest that musical paradoxes may be of interest not only for the

insights they provide on our perceptual system, but also for the richness of the

emotional experience elicited during listening.

(Vernooij, Web)

Therefore, these experiments provide us with theories about why Shepard Tones can be widely

used in artworks and bring strong psychological feelings to people. It is the psychological effect

of Shepard Tone that makes it extremely effective in film soundtracks. In films, sound effects

and music have gradually blurred the boundaries between the other. Sound effects are no longer a

purely synthetic sound source. Movie soundtracks often adopt sound effect processing methods,

and sound-effected music has become popular. Such examples abound in “Dunkirk”, and they

also prove that hearing has no less effect on emotions than vision, and can even stimulate more

memories and emotions related to vision, temperature, and taste.

As a student major in the EPD department, and in the two semesters I have studied, I

have been learning about sound design and production. In this process, I became more aware of

the importance of basic knowledge, as they are very significant parts in our music. How to use

them, how to give the audience freshness, and create good sound effects are what we have been

learning. Just like Shepard Tone, it is just a small part, but it can provide excellent results for
many works. After learning these tools, I also want to work on film scoring in the future. These

studies have provided me with good ideas and good awareness. Music does not mean that it has

to be melodic and beautiful. Sounds like Shepard Tone that most ordinary listeners and audiences

are not even aware of can bring people a different experience, which I want to use and present in

my works in the future.

From Bach to Escher to modern films such as "Dunkirk," Shepard Tones have been used

extensively in artworks. Shepard Tones use illusion to help audiences feel, see, and hear a wider

range of emotions that an artist wishes to convey within their artwork. This also lays down the

foundation to allow us to apply more acoustic effects to art and provide people with better

psychological and physical experiences.

 References

Guerrasio, Jason. “Christopher Nolan Explains the 'Audio Illusion' That Created the Unique

Music in 'Dunkirk'.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 24 July 2017,

www.businessinsider.com/dunkirk-music-christopher-nolan-hans-zimmer-2017-7.

Hofstadter, Douglas R. Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. Basic Books, 1999.

McGregor, Lewis. “The Power of Sound: Using the Shepard Tone In Filmmaking.” The Beat: A

Blog by PremiumBeat, 27 July 2017, www.premiumbeat.com/blog/shepard-tone-sound-

design-filmmaking/.

“Shepard Tone.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 May 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Shepard_tone.

Sooke, Alastair. “MC Escher: An Enigma behind an Illusion.” BBC Culture, BBC, 25 June 2015,

www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150624-arts-most-famous-illusion.

“The Musical Offering.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Apr. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/

wiki/The_Musical_Offering.

Vernooij, Eveline, et al. "Listening to the Shepard-Risset Glissando: the Relationship between

Emotional Response, Disruption of Equilibrium, and Personality." Frontiers in

Psychology, 2016. Gale Academic OneFile, https://catalog.berklee.edu:2504/apps/doc/

A457610661/AONE?u=mlin_b_berklee&sid=AONE&xid=b8f0f874. Accessed 27 July

2020.