What is the Shepard Tone?

And where have I heard it before?

Exciting movie alert!

We are nearing the release of two big summer films: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.

July 21, 2023 is being referred to as “Barbenheimer.”

As a film lover, there’s a lot about these movies that has me curious.

What will the films look like?

How will they tell these stories?

And what kind of music will they feature?

And I’m really curious about the film scores…especially for Oppenheimer.

Years ago I came across an interview with Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan (whose other films include The Dark Knight, Inception, and Dunkirk) where he spoke about the role music plays in his films.

Filmmaker Christopher Nolan (right)

And he mentioned that he began using a “Shepard Tone” when he was working on the 2006 film The Prestige.

But wait, what’s a Shepard Tone?

I was curious…

The idea of the Shepard Tone goes back to the 1960s, when cognitive scientist Roger Shepard was researching how people use their senses – like seeing and hearing – to perceive and interpret their environment. 

Roger Shepard

In 1964, he published his findings in an article, ‘Circularity in Judgments of Relative Pitch’ in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 

The idea led to the development of the ‘Shepard Scale’ or ‘Shepard Tone.’

So what exactly is it?

Simply put, the Shepard Tone is an audio illusion that tricks your brain into thinking a sound is always rising or falling in pitch.

It’s achieved by playing overlapping notes that are one octave apart, and at different volumes. 

Basically, it’s an endless loop of sound that never reaches a destination. 

And it’s eerie.

Here is what it sounds like:

I told you it was eerie.

You can also hear the Shepard Tone in the video game Super Mario 64, as Mario climbs the endless stairs.

The Shepard Tone has also been called the ‘Musical Barber Pole’ or ‘The Sonic Barber Pole’ and has been used by bands including The Police, Pink Floyd, and Franz Ferdinand.

But Christopher Nolan has given the Shepard Tone more popularity by incorporating it in his films.

“It’s a corkscrew effect,” he said in 2017.

“It’s always going up and up and up but it never goes outside of its range.”

In addition to Nolan’s film The Prestige, you can hear the Shepard Tone in the score for his 2008 film The Dark Knight, and in this scene where it is applied to the sound of the Batpod:

And Nolan took the Shepard Tone a step further in 2017 for his World War II film, Dunkirk.

In Dunkirk, Nolan applied the structure of the Shepard Tone to the rising trajectory of his screenplay.

“I wrote the script according to that principle,” he said.

“I interwove three timelines in such a way that there’s a continual feeling of intensity. Increasing intensity.

“We built the music as we built the picture cut. So there’s a fusion of music and sound and picture that we’ve never been able to achieve before.”

The Shepard Tone can be a helpful way to complement a story, but it should be used with care.

Not only does that spooky sound it creates make people feel tension, it can also make them feel sick, dizzy, or even faint.

Though Nolan has worked with composer Hans Zimmer on several films (including The Dark Knight, Inception, and Dunkirk), his latest film, Oppenheimer, features a score by Academy-Award winning Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson.

I haven’t come across anything that mentions if Göransson’s score will include the Shepard Tone, but judging by the music in the trailer, it sounds like the score of this film will also bring the tension.

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One more thing…

Shepard’s interest in illusions can also be seen in the Shepard Elephant (also known as “L’egs-istential Quandry” or “the impossible elephant”) as shown below.

The drawing was made by Shepard in 1974 and published in his 1990 book Mind Sights.

“The elephant…belongs to a class of objects that are truly impossible in that the object itself cannot be globally segregated from the non-object or background,” Shepard said.

“Part of the object (in this case, the elephant’s legs) become the background, and vice versa.”

The Shepard Tables are another optical illusion Shepard includes in Mind Sights.

Your eyes might tell you these parallelograms are radically different…but they aren’t!

Thanks so much for reading!

Heads up: While my curiosity never goes on vacation, I am taking a break from writing Curious Minds this month.

Have a fika, enjoy some time with Henry Jones, Ethan Hunt or Barbie, and I’ll be back with more stories you never knew you wanted to know soon!

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Recent Work and Writing

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Don’t Miss This Lesson from Chris Licht — The story of the ousted CEO of CNN offers an important leadership lesson.

The Helpers Are Out There — Mr. Rogers was right. The world is not as bleak as the news might have you believe.

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How Can I Help?

I’ll keep saying it: Communication matters.

And this week’s communication imbroglio...comes from Barbie.

The new film Barbie has been banned in Vietnam because of a message some are interpreting from dotted lines on a map.

Though Warner Bros has defended the map, saying it was “not intended to make any type of statement”, there is talk that the Philippines may ban the film as well.

Warner Bros could lose millions over a doodle.

While that may seem ridiculous, it’s a good reminder that we are communicating all the time —and our words (and images) matter.

And if you want to improve your communication (and get all the good things that come with that), I’m your gal.

So many companies could reap significant benefits – from performance and culture to retention and engagement – by improving their communication.

So, if you know someone who could benefit from some help (as even the most seasoned leaders do), please get in touch and check out my website for more information.

You can also see my Top 10 list of what I can (and can’t) do for you here.

And if you see any communication examples (the good, the bad, and the ugly) that you think are worth analyzing or sharing, please send them my way!

Until next time, Stay Curious!

-Beth