# Another thread about dissonance and modern music



## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Can dissonant harmonies ever express something truly beautiful, joyful or tender? That is; can they make us feel anything other than foreboding, fear, unease, melancholy, alienation etc.

I don't doubt that atonal music can be beautiful, but beauty is subjective - you can find beauty in a scary, atonal piece, but that doesn't make it capable to express something beyond its own innate 'scariness' by most of our standards.

I ask because I have listened to a lot of modern music, and most recently Messiaen's Saint Francois d'Assise, which has a kind of emotional peak of the first act. When the saint kisses a leper, showing his saintly compassion and devotion to God, the music becomes very tender, blissfully beautiful and moving. However; this is one of the few points where the music in the first act lacks any kind of 'dissonance' by modern standards. 

Perhaps Messiaen didn't feel that it was possible to express such pure love and tenderness with more angular harmonies, and that he would have to return to conventional tonality to do so. Or am I besides the point? 

I packed some specific questions into there, but I hope this post is coherent and someone can answer.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Trouble is, you're being too modern. Try this:






This is borrowed from here:

According to Rebel Chaos is "that confusion which reigned among the elements before the moment, when subjected to invariable laws, they took their ordained places in the order of nature." Rebel goes on to describe how he undertook to represent chaos musically: "I dared to undertake to link the idea of the confusion of the elements with that of confusion in harmony. I hazarded to make heard first all sound together or rather all of the notes of the octave united as a single sound." Thus was born the first tone cluster in the history of Western art music! The chaos theme returns seven times throughout the movement and each time it appears the struggle between the elements further diminishes in intensity. Chaos concludes with a perfect consonance - an octave.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Jobis said:


> I don't doubt that atonal music can be beautiful, but beauty is subjective - you can find beauty in a scary, atonal piece, but that doesn't make it capable to express something beyond its own innate 'scariness' by most of our standards.


If you accept that beauty is subjective, then why on earth would you even ask if dissonance can be beautiful? A majority of people may agree that a particular thing is beautiful, but those are still subjective experiences.
These so-called "standards" turn your argument into something of a tautology: _given that we have certain standards for beauty, can something that doesn't meet these standards be beautiful?_


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## Garlic (May 3, 2013)

I don't know if this is "atonal" (maybe not entirely) but it's very lyrical and tender, as well as being quite dissonant at times






Someone will probably mention the Berg concerto as well.

It's all subjective though. This piece by Schoenberg sounds quite joyful and playful to me, but others might think it sounds foreboding or alienating. (Apparently it also sounds like a cat running across a piano, but that's youtube for you)






To be honest I usually dislike emotional prescriptivism in music, I like to be able to interpret things in my own way. And lots of dissonant and "atonal" music sounds beautiful, joyful and/or tender to me.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Garlic said:


> Someone will probably mention the Berg concerto as well.


I was going to.....


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> If you accept that beauty is subjective, then why on earth would you even ask if dissonance can be beautiful? A majority of people may agree that a particular thing is beautiful, but those are still subjective experiences.
> These so-called "standards" turn your argument into something of a tautology: _given that we have certain standards for beauty, can something that doesn't meet these standards be beautiful?_


I didn't mean to say that atonal or dissonant works are less beautiful. However you have to admit they divide people a lot more than a piece by say, Mozart. I suppose what I specifically wanted to know is whether a dissonant piece can be somewhat cheerful, sweet, tender rather than possessing largely negative emotional impact.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> If you accept that beauty is subjective, then why on earth would you even ask if dissonance can be beautiful? A majority of people may agree that a particular thing is beautiful, but those are still subjective experiences.
> These so-called "standards" turn your argument into something of a tautology: _given that we have certain standards for beauty, can something that doesn't meet these standards be beautiful?_


and by standards I meant standard emotional responses, not critical or aesthetic standards of beauty.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Jobis said:


> I didn't mean to say that atonal or dissonant works are less beautiful. However you have to admit they divide people a lot more than a piece by say, Mozart. I suppose what I specifically wanted to know is whether a dissonant piece can be somewhat cheerful, sweet, tender rather than possessing largely negative emotional impact.


It depends on the context, doesn't it? A dissonance in a classical era piece for example means something different than a "dissonance" in something more modern that uses a different sense of tonality and harmony.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Jobis said:


> I didn't mean to say that atonal or dissonant works are less beautiful. However you have to admit they divide people a lot more than a piece by say, Mozart. I suppose what I specifically wanted to know is whether a dissonant piece can be somewhat cheerful, sweet, tender rather than possessing largely negative emotional impact.


I can't imagine there are _any_ properties of music, apart from mathematically measurable ones like pitch, where absolutely everyone would hear the same thing and have the same response.
One person's "beautiful" could be another's "saccharine"; one person's "tender" another's "tedious"; and so forth. So why not one person's "unease" and another's "joy"?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Nereffid said:


> I can't imagine there are _any_ properties of music, apart from mathematically measurable ones like pitch, where absolutely everyone would hear the same thing and have the same response.
> One person's "beautiful" could be another's "saccharine"; one person's "tender" another's "tedious"; and so forth. So why not one person's "unease" and another's "joy"?


I disagree; *I think that dissonance and consonance are "biologically metaphorical" on a physical level as well.* Consonance is smooth vibration, the ultimate consonance being 1:1, or "one note," representing "unity" or "God."

Dissonance gets further and further away from this quiescent stillness, and the vibrations get rougher: 2:3, 3:4, 4:5, 5:6, until we reach very pronounced dissonances, 135:128, 256:225, and so on.

Shaking a baby is not good, physically, not because of aesthetic opinion. The same goes for our "baby eardrums;" if they are subjected to "rough treatment," this is perceived as fear, an attack; unrest produces anxiety. Simple physics!

The Army has already experimented with dissonant low-frequency "sound cannons" which can cause incontinence in targeted individuals.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I disagree; *I think that dissonance and consonance are "biologically metaphorical" on a physical level as well.* Consonance is smooth vibration, the ultimate consonance being 1:1, or "one note," representing "unity" or "God."
> 
> Dissonance gets further and further away from this quiescent stillness, and the vibrations get rougher: 2:3, 3:4, 4:5, 5:6, until we reach very pronounced dissonances, 135:128, 256:225, and so on.
> 
> ...


I can imagine a world where traditionally consonant intervals are _boring_ and lacking in color, and it's the traditionally dissonant intervals that evoke a wider range of emotions. (Some of us may even live in that world.)


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

apricissimus said:


> I can imagine a world where traditionally consonant intervals are _boring_ and lacking in color, and it's the traditionally dissonant intervals that evoke a wider range of emotions. (Some of us may even live in that world.)


In Balinese gamelan music, gongs are often explicitly tuned to achieve those "rough vibrations," a sound they find not only beautiful but nearly sacred.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

apricissimus said:


> I can imagine a world where traditionally consonant intervals are _boring_ and lacking in color, and it's the traditionally dissonant intervals that evoke a wider range of emotions. (Some of us may even live in that world.)


Wow! I never imagined that anyone could bend over backwards so far! That's amazing!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Eschbeg said:


> In Balinese gamelan music, gongs are often explicitly tuned to achieve those "rough vibrations," a sound they find not only beautiful but nearly sacred.


Sooner or later, just like water down a drain, sound seeks its natural resting place. Sooner or later, we are faced with the inevitability of *"1."*


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Eschbeg said:


> In Balinese gamelan music, gongs are often explicitly tuned to achieve those "rough vibrations," a sound they find not only beautiful but nearly sacred.


They trade wives with each other, too. And some people enjoy being whipped.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

apricissimus said:


> I can imagine a world where traditionally consonant intervals are _boring_ and lacking in color, and it's the traditionally dissonant intervals that evoke a wider range of emotions. (Some of us may even live in that world.)


My view of intervals in music is they are all equally sound, but they are better at doing different things. You could draw parallels with men and women being different but equal, but lets not get into sociology. :lol: To say one is more interesting or better than another is almost as foolish as saying certain dissonances have no place in music.

I'm all for the emancipation of the dissonance, but we're far from succeeding at that.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Sooner or later, just like water down a drain, sound seeks its natural resting place. Sooner or later, we are faced with the inevitability of *"1."*


Sooner or later, yes. But in the meantime--i.e. during the actual piece--the sound of rough vibrations suits the Balinese (and me) just fine.



millionrainbows said:


> They trade wives with each other, too. And some people enjoy being whipped.


I suppose recourse to arguments like this were only a matter of time.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Wow! I never imagined that anyone could bend over backwards so far! That's amazing!


The idea of different musical systems with different basic principles isn't so outlandish.

Or maybe just one of them is _right_...?


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

apricissimus said:


> The idea of different musical systems with different basic principles isn't so outlandish.
> 
> Or maybe just one of them is _right_...?


We know that the pentatonic scale pops up all over the world, but to tell you the truth we've got enough room for experimentation and development of the western classical tradition that perhaps we shouldn't scrap it all and restart just yet.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Jobis said:


> We know that the pentatonic scale pops up all over the world, but to tell you the truth we've got enough room for experimentation and development of the western classical tradition that perhaps we shouldn't scrap it all and restart just yet.


I agree that the sounds that humans hear in certain simple ratios of frequencies is a natural starting place for a musical system. But there's no reason to stop there.

And no reason to "scrap" traditional Western music. I don't think anyone could even if they wanted to. But thank goodness for variety.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Jobis said:


> we've got enough room for experimentation and development of the western classical tradition that perhaps we shouldn't scrap it all and restart just yet.


Atonality and modern dissonance have existed for about a century now. In that time, has anything even remotely resembling the "scrapping of the western classical tradition" taken place? Does anyone really believe this is a danger?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Eschbeg said:


> Sooner or later, yes. But in the meantime, the sound of rough vibrations suits the Balinese (and me) just fine. Like most listeners, they and I are more concerned with what's happening in the piece now rather than at that karmic moment when all is 1.


Most people have *never heard* consonance except as octaves. So how can you say they "prefer" dissonance?

The intervals in equal temperament are:

Unison.........0 cents: 1:1
m2..........100 cents: 196/185
M2...........200 cents: 40/33
m3..........300 cents: 44/37
M3...........400 cents: 25/18
P4............500 cents: 578/433
Tritone.....600 cents: 256/165
P5............700 cents: 433/289
m6...........800 cents: 100/63
M6...........900 cents: 37/22
m7........ 1000 cents: 98/55
M7..........1100 cents: 185/98
Octave.....1200 cents: 2:1


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Yes, you've posted such stats before. None of it changes the fact that in some cultures the intervals you are describing as inherently dissonant are heard as beautiful. The reduction of dissonance to numerical ratios, while useful for getting a handle on music in mathematical terms, does very little for getting a handle on music in experiential terms, which is after all what most listeners are concerned with.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

I agree with Eschbeg. A person's culture determines what his/her ears perceive as "consonance" and "dissonance". In India, for example, they have the Raga which is based on a completely different set of intervals than the ones that Westerners are used to hearing. We perceive this music as "dissonant" because our ears have been pre-conditioned to hear them as dissonant. But to an ear that has been trained to perceive this music as the norm, it sounds different altogether. Culture defines the terms "consonance" and "dissonance".


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

I agree with millions. I haven't run a fourier analysis on it, but intuitiveliy I believe those biological are even present in speech and in animal communication. If you have a cat, pay attention to the intervals on their meows, they're pretty varied and even there dissonance means tension, I believe.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

niv said:


> I agree with millions. I haven't run a fourier analysis on it, but intuitiveliy I believe those biological are even present in speech and in animal communication. If you have a cat, pay attention to the intervals on their meows, they're pretty varied and even there dissonance means tension, I believe.


But even supposing that this is true, why should we be limited to certain ideas of consonance and dissonance, and how each of those makes us react to music? Is there some reason why we just can't go beyond that?

As humans, we do all kinds of things that transcend our biology. I don't see why music should be any different.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

Well, to me, dissonance implies tension, consonance implies release from the tension, almost always. What I think we can "transcend" is whether we enjoy the tension or not, and what this tension means to us.

I'm geniously curious if for anyone dissonance has a meaning of "rest" like I believe consonance has .


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## Guest (Jul 22, 2013)

I think we should scrap this thread entirely. It starts from totally false premises: that "truly beautiful, joyful or tender" are universally understood and experienced categories and not individual responses to stimuli; that everyone feels the same way (and, I suspect, that everyone feels the same way as Jobis--i.e., that "we" and "us" in his posts are linguistic substitutes for "I" and "me."

It also makes several other common errors. It jumps from "dissonant harmonies" (undefined, jbyw) to "atonal music" as if those categories were related or even identical. (Never mind that "atonal" is pretty much useless for any civilized discourse about music.) It makes a quibble on "beauty is subjective" that clearly indicates that Jobis believes that beauty is anything but: "you can find beauty in a scary, atonal piece," which roughly translated means "if you're a twisted freakoid, you can pretend you enjoy ugly crap." (Continuing on with "innate 'scariness'" just adds the icing to that particular cake. Innate scariness? Jeez. I was having enough trouble with scariness entering the conversation in the first place without its being innate, too.)

It uses terms like "atonal" and "modern" without ever defining them or even exemplifying them, with the one exception of Messiaen's Saint Francis. And I have no idea what Jobis means by dissonant by modern standards. If "modern standards" means anything (and it doesn't), then none of Messiaen's Saint Francis is dissonant at all.

To answer the question at the end, yes, the whole premise of this thread is beside the point.

Spend time listening to music and letting it be truly music and not just the emotional soundtrack for your personal feelings and your particular ideas about beauty and fear.

And next thread, please get down to specifics (more than just the one), too. Use all your brushes, not just the broad ones.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

niv said:


> Well, to me, dissonance implies tension, consonance implies release from the tension, almost always. What I think we can "transcend" is whether we enjoy the tension or not, and what this tension means to us.
> 
> I'm geniously curious if for anyone dissonance has a meaning of "rest" like I believe consonance has .


So do you suspect that humans just cannot experience a dissonance (in the traditional sense) as pretty or sweet? (Or maybe those that do are exceptions that prove the rule?)


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

I disagree strongly, some guy. If the thread questions are built on false premises, at the very least it is interesting to analyze those false premises.

I said tension vs rest, I said nothing about prettiness or sweetness .


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

niv said:


> I'm geniously curious if for anyone dissonance has a meaning of "rest" like I believe consonance has .


In the example I cited, the dissonance (or what _we_ call dissonance) generated by two gongs deliberately "mistuned" against each other has exactly that function: rest. Balinese gamelan (as opposed to Javanese) constantly alternates between motion and stasis, and the rough vibrations are always used to mark the moments of stasis in much the same manner as a resolved cadence does for us in the West. In fact, the frequent ceasing of motion, in which all the gamelan instruments fall silent, is partly designed to allow the vibrations to resound so listeners can savor it.


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## Guest (Jul 22, 2013)

Too true.

And even consonance doesn't have the sense of "rest" that niv is trying to foist onto it. Or not _only_ that sense.

Think about an actual piece that's cpt. Consonance is what you _start_ with, eh? And what you move away from. And back to. And away from again. Often (but increasingly less as time goes on) what you end with. And then you start the whole process up again in the next movement.

That is, the raison d'être of tonal music is restlessness. Of constant motion from one state to another and back again. "Rest" in tonal music is a very temporary and evanescent thing. That serial music is often (usually) just as restless is simply evidence that restlessness is more than just a harmonic thing is all.

In fact, this is as good a time as any to remind the esteemed members that in ALL music there is more than just harmonic things!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Dissonance can only be called dissonance in the context that there is consonance as well, the better term for what the OP is trying to say is discordance and even that isn't a very accurate description. There are many many examples from all throughout musical history of dissonance and especially dissonance expressing something beatiful, joyful and tender. Take for example the Tristan chord, which is an inversion of a half diminished chord (very dissonant and needs to be resolved onto a consonant chord such a major chord, Wagner actually half-resolves it famously to a dominant 7th chord at the very start of the opera). More examples include the second movement of Mozart's 40th symphony where all those repeated major 2nds come in at the start, the first movement of Bach's St. John Passion I just think is breathtaking and these are just a few of the millions of examples of dissonant music before the 20th century.

Dissonance was a technique developed in the polyphonic era of the renaissance when composers would study _species counterpoint._ This was a step by step guide to counterpoint (counterpoint for dummies) which took the student through various complexities in contrapuntal writing from one note against another note all the way to what is known as florid counterpoint and all of this above a melody called the _cantus firmus_ which was typically one that started on the first degree of the scale and ended on the same pitch and all pitches had the same note value. Species 4 counterpoint is about developing the _ligature_ or _suspension_ and how dissonance works and how to use it in the context of tonal music.

Dissonance is always related to consonance, one never existed without the other. What atonal music often is can I suppose be better described as discordant to show the difference between "dissonance without resolution" and true dissonance in the tonal sense. I do wish there was a better word for it though!


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

thank you for making this into a really insightful discussion! I'm sorry for my ham-fisted opener, it was poorly thought out, but I just wanted to have a more serious discussion about harmonies and dissonance in relation to a possible innate sense of harmony in the human ear.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

http://www.academia.edu/365054/The_..._sadness_in_speech_mirroring_its_use_in_music

This in an interesting analysis on the function of intervals in speech. See if this does not ring a few bells. Note that happiness and pleasantness correlate strongly with more consonant intervals than sadness and anger.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

What I don't like is this notion of music "must" communicate what I want/I'm looking for...
For me, music is not a drug with certain fixed effect and which I use/consume according to my emotional needs of the moment. 
When I hear a new piece of music, I let the music to communicate whatever it has to communicate. For me, it's a process of discovery. I want the music to surprise me, not to tell me exactly what I want to hear, that would be boring.
If you want to experiment certain emotions, then go and listen to the music you know will bring these emotions to you.
Also, personally, the emotional spectrum is much more wide than happy/sad/melancholic/etc.
I listen to this music because it's capable of evoking emotions I never experienced with other things, for example.
And I cannot even ask for these emotions in other things because they seem to be exclusively related with this music.


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## Guest (Jul 22, 2013)

aleazk said:


> When I hear a new piece of music, I let the music to communicate whatever it has to communicate. For me, it's a process of discovery. I want the music to surprise me, not to tell me exactly what I want to hear, that would be boring.


Excellent good stuff.

Along those lines is my division of listeners into those who listen in order to hear what they like and those who listen in order to like what they hear. The first is very common, and very limiting as well.

The second opens the whole world up to you.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

I'd put myself into the second camp. Also, I wouldn't say that music has a "fixed" emotion written there for you to get, two people can get different feelings from the same work, because in music there's always at least to players: what you're hearing and yourself interpreting it.

But... this does not mean we cannot, for science, research whether there is prewritten circuitry in our brains that gives some* a priori meaning to music. I'd say there is, and I'm pointing to things like in human speech and how animals communicate emotions (in this case cats, which are somewhat related to humans in the evolution tree, so to speak) to give support to my hypothesis. 

* some, not all. There are more alternatives than "all musical meaning is a priori configured in human genetics" and "none of musical meaning is a priori configured in human genetics".


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

(btw, I'm very curious to hear what those balinese gongs sound like)


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

niv said:


> (btw, I'm very curious to hear what those balinese gongs sound like)


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Even illegal immigrant gardeners know consonance is more natural, and positive, than dissonance. They were telling me that a properly-running yard trimmer motor will produce a perfect fifth as it hums along; but if that top pitch drops down to a tritone, the motor is out of balance, and needs maintenance.

These men are "at one" with their machines; their very survival depends on keeping these motors running properly.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Even illegal immigrant gardeners know consonance is more natural, and positive, than dissonance. They were telling me that a properly-running yard trimmer motor will produce a perfect fifth as it hums along; but if that top pitch drops down to a tritone, the motor is out of balance, and needs maintenance.
> 
> These men are "at one" with their machines; their very survival depends on keeping these motors running properly.


So what's good for lawnmowers is what's good for you and me and our listening habits. I know I sure enjoy listening to a good lawnmower.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

apricissimus said:


> So what's good for lawnmowers is what's good for you and me and our listening habits. I know I sure enjoy listening to a good lawnmower.


It's bigger than you or me, man. It's the operating principle of the entire universe. Just ask any enlightened gardener.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

apricissimus said:


> I know I sure enjoy listening to a good lawnmower.


I think it's called basso continuo


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I would love a concerto for lawnmower and orchestra for the Unusual Concertos topic in my blog......


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

There's a Concerto for Cow, Chainsaw, and Orchestra by Jeffrey Stolet.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

millionrainbows said:


> There's a Concerto for Cow, Chainsaw, and Orchestra by Jeffrey Stolet.


Unfortunately it is a piece of electronic music without an actual cow or chainsaw (or orchestra for that matter).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Art Rock said:


> Unfortunately it is a piece of electronic music without an actual cow or chainsaw (or orchestra for that matter).


Yes, unfortunately....but just the idea...uh-oh! Animal Rights activists have disrupted the concert...there's a riot...


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Related to the topic, I found this quite funny:


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## TresPicos (Mar 21, 2009)

niv said:


> Well, to me, dissonance implies tension, consonance implies release from the tension, almost always. What I think we can "transcend" is whether we enjoy the tension or not, and what this tension means to us.
> 
> I'm geniously curious if for anyone dissonance has a meaning of "rest" like I believe consonance has .


*raises hand* :wave:

My favorite dissonant music usually puts me in a state of harmony, clarity and even bliss. Some of that music is restful, but other pieces are quite restless and still has a calming effect. Other dissonant music does not have this effect. Just like some consonant music releases tension and other doesn't.

To me, Bartok's ugly fourth string quartet releases tension, whereas only two minutes of perfectly consonant harpsichord music builds tension like you would not believe.

So, it's just... not... that... simple.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

Interesting, I really like bartok but it never releases tension for me (at least not in the 4th sq )


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## Guest (Jul 23, 2013)

niv said:


> ...for me.


The key phrase in every post.

Now if only anyone actually _believed_ it.

But no. "For me" is a mask, a subterfuge, a distraction from what's really being said: "for normal people."


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

some guy said:


> The key phrase in every post.
> 
> Now if only anyone actually _believed_ it.
> 
> But no. "For me" is a mask, a subterfuge, a distraction from what's really being said: "for normal people."


No, I think sometimes it really just means "for me" (and maybe not for someone else).


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## Guest (Jul 23, 2013)

Very rarely.

And certainly _not_ in the instance I was reacting to!


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I'd hate to have to worry about "subterfuge".


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

some guy said:


> Very rarely.
> 
> And certainly _not_ in the instance I was reacting to!


It's too mentally taxing to try to puzzle out exactly what's going on inside other people's heads. My default is usually to take their words at face value. It's less stressful.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

some guy said:


> Very rarely.
> 
> And certainly _not_ in the instance I was reacting to!


I said I found it interesting, it broke my expectation, I wasn't diminishing his experience nor I said my reaction was "normal" nor "better". I have a certain disdain for the term "normal" actually.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*Another thread about dissonance and modern music*

*Oh no! Not AGAIN!?!*


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## Guest (Jul 23, 2013)

The zombie thread.

It never dies, but it's also already dead.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> The zombie thread.
> 
> It never dies, but it's also already dead.


Night of the living dead dissonances ~ Or the consequences of living and dead consonances and dissonances... some such?

Take two aspirins, drink plenty of fluids, and call Herr Doktor Doktor Faustus Musikuum in the morning.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

There's a statement by Adorno that I often think about. He wrote that the appearance of the Bach chorale in Berg's Violin Concerto was more shocking than any dissonance could ever be. Within the context of the work, of course.

I'm not fond of deliberate shock moments in music. Yet I wondered if, in a twelve-tone environment, one can create harmonic shock moments at all. Sharp dissonances in an otherwise predominantly diatonic work can create staggering effects. The inversion of this would be a perfect consonance in a twelve-tone piece.

But if one didn't want that, if one wanted to avoid consonance throughout, one would have other means to produce similar effects. One could go to extreme registers, or extreme dynamics, or sudden tempo changes, or combinations of these and other means.

When I think of works for the harpsichord, I feel that these must be about the most difficult to compose, given that the instrument is very limited in many ways. The single-manual type in particular. Dynamics are fixed and th pitch range is fairly narrow. When people composed for this instrument, all of the intensity and drama that one would otherwise create through dynamics, colour or extreme registers, must be created through the melodic and harmonic process, which - correct me if I'm wrong (or you simply feel like it) - is based on the relationship of tension and release as represented by the varying degrees of dissonance and consonance.

Now, if I were to compose a totally dodecaphonic piece for the single-manual harpsichord, how would I create varying degrees of intensity? Would you reckon that, even in a twelve-tone environment, dissonances are scalable in terms of intensity? In other words, is there still a hierachie of dissonance within a dodecaphonic framework?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

niv said:


> (btw, I'm very curious to hear what those balinese gongs sound like)


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Night of the living dead dissonances ~ Or the consequences of living and dead consonances and dissonances... some such?
> 
> Take two aspirins, drink plenty of fluids, and call Herr Doktor Doktor Faustus Musikuum in the morning.


Don't call Docteur Fabricius


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Andreas said:


> There's a statement by Adorno that I often think about. He wrote that the appearance of the Bach chorale in Berg's Violin Concerto was more shocking than any dissonance could ever be. Within the context of the work, of course.


And yet there are some who fail to even recognize the change from total chromaticism to diatonic chromaticism, indicating that it isn't very shocking after all. I find it's very well integrated with the language of the piece, just like the quotations in Berg's Lyric Suite.



Andreas said:


> I'm not fond of deliberate shock moments in music.


Neither am I. There has to be a musical reason for it to be worthwhile.



Andreas said:


> Yet I wondered if, in a twelve-tone environment, one can create harmonic shock moments at all. Sharp dissonances in an otherwise predominantly diatonic work can create staggering effects. The inversion of this would be a perfect consonance in a twelve-tone piece.


Yes, easily. Why assume that things work so much differently in 12-tone music?



Andreas said:


> But if one didn't want that, *if one wanted to avoid consonance throughout*, one would have other means to produce similar effects.


Of course nobody actually does this. Even a cursory listen to a Schoenberg or Webern work shows that things work as they do in other works, simply that more kinds of chords are treated as consonances than before.



Andreas said:


> One could go to extreme registers, or extreme dynamics, or sudden tempo changes, or combinations of these and other means.


You could easily be referring to Beethoven or Shostakovich here. Certainly far more than Schoenberg, Berg, or Webern.



Andreas said:


> When I think of works for the harpsichord, I feel that these must be about the most difficult to compose, given that the instrument is very limited in many ways. The single-manual type in particular. Dynamics are fixed and th pitch range is fairly narrow. When people composed for this instrument, all of the intensity and drama that one would otherwise create through dynamics, colour or extreme registers, must be created through the melodic and harmonic process, which - correct me if I'm wrong (or you simply feel like it) - is based on the relationship of tension and release as represented by the varying degrees of dissonance and consonance.
> 
> Now, if I were to compose a totally dodecaphonic piece for the single-manual harpsichord, how would I create varying degrees of intensity? *Would you reckon that, even in a twelve-tone environment, dissonances are scalable in terms of intensity?* In other words, is there still a hierachie of dissonance within a dodecaphonic framework?


Why on Earth would they not be? Of course they are. A sharper dissonance is still a sharper dissonance (or a less-perfect consonance), no matter what the context. The music works the exact same way as anywhere else. I'm not aware of any 12-tone works for harpsichord, but I know several "atonal" works for the instrument, including those by Ligeti and Takemitsu.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Dissonance is only one aspect of music, which is a pitch phenomenon. I can make a composition using dissonances, and if the tones are of a soft timbre, played slowly, and enter gently, it would be a calming experience.
Morton Feldman has done similar things, in his Rothko Chapel and Three Voices (for Joan LaBarbara). He uses a vibraphone, which has a very muted timbre You can hear the 'beating' of the intervals, but nonetheless it creates a very dark, muted, calming effect.





















 Click to open expanded view


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Nereffid said:


> If you accept that beauty is subjective, then why on earth would you even ask if dissonance can be beautiful? A majority of people may agree that a particular thing is beautiful, but those are still subjective experiences.
> These so-called "standards" turn your argument into something of a tautology: _given that we have certain standards for beauty, can something that doesn't meet these standards be beautiful?_


Ahh, you bettered, by about 1000%, whatever answer I might have given, that while reacting in a bit of disappointment / frustration confronted with what seems like a heavily obdurate and closed mentality as to what is musically beautiful or expressive. So I would like to personally thank you for taking the time and doing it so well.

My answer to "Can dissonant harmonies ever express something truly beautiful, joyful or tender?" 
-- _a very long sigh, and a very firm "yes."_


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Let me just say my opinions have changed dramatically since I made this thread... kind of embarassing seeing it surface again


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> I didn't mean to say that atonal or dissonant works are less beautiful. However you have to admit they divide people a lot more than a piece by say, Mozart. I suppose what I specifically wanted to know is whether a dissonant piece can be somewhat cheerful, sweet, tender rather than possessing largely negative emotional impact.


Have you seen how many people do not care for Mozart? ...or at least preferred Beethoven far far over Mozart? It seems Mozart is a devisive issue, too.

But modern era and contemporary arts _vs._ arts from the 19th century and earlier being a devisive issue?

I'm shocked and appalled


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Jobis said:


> Let me just say my opinions have changed dramatically since I made this thread... kind of embarassing seeing it surface again


I understand your feeling, but I don't think you should be embarrassed. I think your questions are quite natural, and common, for those who have not experienced enough dissonant or modern music to change their initial views. Many people experience the same feelings you did on hearing modern, dissonant music. The difference is that you continued to listen and began to hear what you initially did not.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Jobis said:


> Let me just say my opinions have changed dramatically since I made this thread... kind of embarassing seeing it surface again


I'd hate to have had a forum like this to vent about things that I used to think. A decade or two from now I'll probably look back at things I wrote around this time and disagree with myself with vehemence!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jobis said:


> Let me just say my opinions have changed dramatically since I made this thread... kind of embarassing seeing it surface again


God bless the fairly long-lasting electronic archive. I too, could be a member of that virtual 12-step group who meet to get over their embarrassments over things said in the past! 

But really, I hope you've noticed these shifts of taste over time, from those who thought they were into classical and knew only, say Vivaldi, or had a fair involvement with much more of common practice repertoire and who then came to TC and found themselves curious as to 'this other music,' (of whatever sort.) It is also quite routine that within a year or two a number of those who thought they would never like modern and contemporary repertoire find themselves happy -- if not zealous -- converts to music they thought would forever say nothing to them.

And, surprise, surprise, this is _a common patten in a person's developing tastes._ I think what surprises us when we are 'adult,' is that such a shift from there to here was still a possibility.

But now, with your 'revised' hearing and from your current perspective, it would I think be more than interesting to revisit that moment in the Messiaen you cited.

I believe the following to be true regarding those highly expressive moments such as you found in that work. I risk saying this without knowing of that moment in the Messiaen you cited, because I think the following is simply a device found a long time ago: _Regardless of the musical vocabulary, atonal, serial, non-serial, common practice harmony, etc._ these moments are usually a matter of a specifically deployed strategy.

That strategy _is a cessation of either or both the density and intensity of note and rhythmic activity, and a thinning out (and / or often a slowing down or stilling) of the frequency of musical events in general._ The tactic, quite regardless of its 'emotional direction,' _is innately dramatic,_ and quite effectively brings the listener's attention to focus on 'something simple,' (the dissonance level not being a relative part of the formula.) _This effect will almost certainly generate a feeling of a more intimate and personal musical statement / moment._

One could call it "the K.I.S.S." strategy, in context 'dropping complexity' to something simple and sitting, as it were, in more of a temporal stasis in contrast to what preceded the moment, and it has been known and used throughout music, drama, literature, libretti for opera and story ballets... for centuries.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Jobis said:


> Let me just say my opinions have changed dramatically since I made this thread... kind of embarassing seeing it surface again


Sorry about that!


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Andreas said:


> Sorry about that!


there's nothing to be sorry about :tiphat:


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Dissonance is only one aspect of music, which is a pitch phenomenon. I can make a composition using dissonances, and if the tones are of a soft timbre, played slowly, and enter gently, it would be a calming experience.
> Morton Feldman has done similar things, in his Rothko Chapel and Three Voices (for Joan LaBarbara). He uses a vibraphone, which has a very muted timbre You can hear the 'beating' of the intervals, but nonetheless it creates a very dark, muted, calming effect.


Yes, this reminds me also of Boulez' First Piano Sonata, for instance, where, there are passages of extremely dry, almost hostile staccato-sounding notes and then, as a contrast, passages where the notes are sustained and the piano is allowed to use its reverberant sound. These latter passages are quite soothing. There are similar things in Webern's Variations for Piano.


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