Consonance and Dissonance

[rojo]

I`ve been reading the following from a page from wikipedia-



''The emancipation of the dissonance was a concept or goal put forth by Arnold Schoenberg and others, including his pupil Anton Webern, composer of atonal music and the inventor of the twelve tone technique. It may be described as a metanarrative to justify atonality. Jim Samson (1977) describes: "As the ear becomes acclimatized to a sonority within a particular context, the sonority will gradually become 'emancipated' from that context and seek a new one. The emancipation of the dominant-quality dissonances has followed this pattern, with the dominant seventh developing in status from a contrapuntal note in the sixteenth century to a quasi-consonant harmonic note in the early nineteenth. By the later nineteenth century the higher numbered dominant-quality dissonances had also achieved harmonic status, with resolution delayed or omitted completely. The greater autonomy of the dominant-quality dissonance contributed significantly to the weakening of traditional tonal function within a purely diatonic context."

Composers such as Charles Ives, Dane Rudhyar, even Duke Ellington and Lou Harrison, connected the emancipation of the dissonance with the emancipation of society and humanity. Michael Broyles calls Ives tone cluster rich song "Majority" as "an incantation, a mystical statement of belief in the masses or the people." Duke Ellington, after playing some of his pieces for a journalist, said "That's the Negro's life ... Hear that chord! Dissonance is our way of life in America. We are something apart, yet an integral part." Lou Harrison, described Carl Ruggles's counterpoint as "a community of singing lines, living a life of its own, ... careful not to get ahead or behind in its rhythmic cooperation with the others." Rudhyar subtitled his "Dissonant Harmony: A New Principle of Musical and Social Organization," writing, ""Dissonant music is thus the music of true and spiritual Democracy; the music of universal brotherhoods; music of Free Souls, not of personalities. It abolishes tonalities, exactly as the real Buddhistic Reformation abolished castes into the Brotherhood of Monks; for Buddhism is nothing but spiritual Democracy."

Just as the harmonic series was and is used as a justification for consonance, such as by Rameau, among others, the harmonic series is often used as physical or psychoacoustic justification for the gradual emancipation of intervals and chords found further and further up the harmonic series over time, such as is argued by Henry Cowell in defense of his tone clusters. Some argue further that they are not dissonances, but consonances higher up the harmonic series and thus more complex. Chailly (1951: 12) gives the following diagram, a specific timeline he proposes:

1910: Emancipation of Dissonance is a book by Thomas Harrison which uses Schoenberg's 'revolution' to trace other movements in the arts around that time.''




Thus dissonance has varied a great deal over time. Now, I wonder if this happens on a personal level sometimes as well. I don`t find all tone clusters consonant, but I have noticed that works I would have perceived as dissonant in the past, I now find more consonant.

Are people fascinated by this concept of dissonance, such as I? Numerous times in my teaching, I will be listening to a student playing a new work slowly, hit a chord, and the student will say 'that sounds ugly!' or 'gee that sounds bad; did I get that right?' and I will say, 'yes, keep on going, and it will sound fine.' Because I know the resolution is in the next chord, or coming up soon. It`s all about the context.

Now, that resolution of dissonant chords to consonant ones has such a wonderful effect. Like 'Aaahh.' Yet some of my favourite pieces are ones that do not resolve! Ravel`s La Valse does not resolve, in fact the whole piece is full of pushing the resolution away. I think this is why I go bonkers over this piece; there is the framework of tonality, but the resolution of the dissonance is not there!

I put forward that it may be possible that this emancipation of the dissonance may happen on a personal level, as well as a historical one. I have recently noticed that some atonal works are sounding great to my ears. That being said, I still don`t like things that sound random. Now, what I really should do, is an experiment. I should pick an atonal work that I can`t seem to get into, and really learn it. I wonder what would happen... :grin:

 

[Thomas Dressler]

Rojo, yes! Completely fascinated by the concept of dissonance and consonance because it is what gives music an impulse to move forward!

I think the acceptance or non-acceptance of intervals as consonance/dissonance is one of the major components of a musical style. It is something we do as a group, with attitudes being passed on through exposure; and it is further refined as an individual, creating personal differences within a given general style. I do think the "taste" for certain intervals is an acquired thing, and this is partly the reason I believe music is NOT a universal language. However, it is amazing how much happens on a subconscious level. For example, I remember back in the 1980s teaching a class of 6th graders about Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring. I gave the explanation about how people hated it and rioted and all that, and then I played some examples. They just kind of sat and looked at one another. Finally someone asked what was so annoying about it? They liked it. . .

These attitudes are so important they have even shaped keyboard tunings. Think back to the late middle ages when 8ves and 5ths were the major dissonances. The keyboard tuning at that time was Pythagorean, with its perfectly tuned 5ths. 3rds were considered dissonant, and in that tuning, they really are sharp! Then in the Renaissance when 3rds became accepted as not only consonant, but an integral part of sonorities, keyboards were tuned in meantone, which had pure 3rds but out of tune 5ths.

I have to admit that personally, I find some 20th century experiments interesting, but I prefer tonal structure that has a high degree of dissonance/consonance resolution. If you listen to a lot of Bach, you'll find that he uses EXCRUCIATING dissonances at times, but always resolves them--sometimes delays that resolution a lot! Then, of course, there's Palestrina, with his own use of consonance/dissonance, more mild than Bach.

In my own music, I use dissonance both to impel the music in the manner of Bach, and also to color the tones, sort of like Debussy. Perhaps only the composer can explain his own music, and sometimes even he can't! But if you listen to the soundclip of the Psalm Tone or Hymn in "Modern Style" on my website [http://www.thomasdressler.com I can't figure out how to work with web addresses in this editor] you'll hear some pretty extreme dissonance, but it is handled pretty much like Bach or Palestrina. I like that kind of organization of sound, but that's just me. Anyhow, the point here is that my own feeling is that the acceptance of higher overtones as consonance does not have to weaken harmonic language--it only does so if the composer is not inclined to the discipline needed to use it. It can be adapted and applied, one just has to revise the rules, and I personally like that kind of music--like Hindemith and Walter Piston, for example.

On the other hand, music is about expression, albeit sometimes the thing being expressed is form and beauty rather than raw emotion. Anyhow, I think the personal inclination to use dissonance in one way or another comes from a lot of things. And let's consider that some of the most dissonant, unresolved music comes after the horrors of the World Wars. Another contributor might be the general rise of noisiness and dissonant sounds of the industrial age. I, myself, tend to be a "back to nature" kind of person and perhaps this is why I like Bach and Palestrina so much.

Excellent thread topic, Rojo!

 

[Ouled Nails]

These perspectives, particularly the concept of "emancipation," are very useful and enlightening. Thank you both! It may be completely irrelevant but the thought of Charles Ives as an American emancipator makes a lot of sense in the context of the Progressive era (1900-1916). That is also the time when the concept of "freedom" was being defined in a more fluid manner by different groups of Americans. Isadora Duncan, for instance, completely emancipated dancing from its old art form. Could musical expression and its range and resolution of consonance/dissonance be partly understood in light of the ever changing and ranging concept of freedom?

 

[Thomas Dressler]

More

I just went and listened to that soundclip I mentioned in my previous post, and wanted to say more. I think it can be helpful to hear how a piece is put together, and in this case I was very deliberate about the use of dissonance.

First of all, I said I liked resolved dissonances, but on first hearing, that may sound untrue. The final note of the piece has an unresolved dissonance. This is for a couple reasons. One is that it was written to sing multiple verses of a metrical translation of the psalm "Out of the depths I call to you. . ." The unresolved dissonance is supposed to impel us on to the next verse, and at the final verse, it is supposed to leave us with a sense of expectation, of incompleteness. (The last verse begins, "O Israel, wait upon the Lord. . .")

Now, let me say that if the piece had been written with a more free approach to dissonance, where it does not resolve, then that unresolved dissonance would not have the same feeling of expectation. We need to decide how we are going to use dissonance and set up a basic "grammar" that is then followed more or less rigorously if a deviation is going to be meaningful.

Also, it was written for a congregation that is generally interested in learning about more modern music, but not necessarily accustomed to it. So the trick was to introduce more liberal use of dissonance without searing their ears right off! So here is how it was done. The outer voices are written almost the same way one would harmonize in classical style. If you remove the inner voices, it could be harmonized like a theory exercise. The dissonance was placed in the middle two voices. The major second was accepted as a consonance that does not necessarily need resolution, and in the second phrase, dissonance was gradually increased to the point of a minor second, which is then resolved, which was supposed to create the effect of increasing tension.

The harmonic language is my own invention, a combined "dialect" of classical and modern harmony. In our present time, when a person decides to write or to harmonize, he/she has to decide what harmonic language to use. If making one up, as I said, you need to set up a "grammar" and then follow it if people are supposed to figure out what you're trying to say. In this case, I kept the familar classical grammar as the basis so the people listening would have some frame of reference. I feel very strongly that often, especially in the 20th century, what composers did was invent a new language, completely new, and then plop it down in front of an audience and wonder why they couldn't understand it. So my own opinion is that it is good to at least speak a "dialect" of something familiar, or they won't get it. It depends, of course, on how immediate you want it to be. Some things will become familar with repeated listenings, but for a church congregation who will hear something once, this basis in something familiar is important, I believe.