# Why Did Tonality Break Down?



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

From another thread, I quote some guy, who contended that "sonance" was the culprit. He said that a *consonant* interval stays at rest, and that *dissonance* encourages "movement" to resolve.



some guy said:


> ...the (tonal) system...encourages development...Dissonance is the primary principle. And when, as inevitably happens, a dissonance becomes perceived as consonant, it no longer functions to produce the sense of movement that is tonality's raison d'être....By the early 1900s, many prominent composers felt that there were no longer any dissonances that were compelling, that absolutely called out to be resolved, i.e. that needed to move to something else. Any chord could move to any other chord...


Tonality is simply a harmonic model.

The keynote is the tonality, and all other notes of the octave it is in relate to it fractionally, as ratios. This is the same way lesser harmonics relate to a fundamental.

Dissonance and consonance (hitherto referred to as "sonance") are not qualities which change with perception, taste, familiarity, or the times; they are absolute values which are unchanging.
The most absolute consonance is, and will always be, 1:1. All other fractional divisions are gradually more dissonant as they deviate from 1:1, such as 2:3, 3:4, 4:5, 5:6, 6:7, 7:8, 8:9, and so on. Going left towards 1:1, the intervals become simple and more consonant; going to the right, they become more dissonant.

_Tonality eventually broke down, not because "dissonance became perceived as consonant," but because of excessive modulation, which degraded the home key._ Modulation is a harmonic sleight-of-hand which draws the ear/brain to a new and different 1:1 or home key reference.

Harmonic function (i.e. root movement) gained so many double-meanings via modulation that it became _ambiguous,_ and it became unclear where "home" (1:1) was. Harmonic function broke down, because the "reference note" (1:1) became obscured or unclear, because of excessive modulation.

This breakdown of tonality had nothing to do with perceived consonance and dissonance, but with unknown or ambiguous reference to a key note.

Thus, the "harmonic truth" and "constancy" of the ratio 1:1 will always be unchanging, regardless of "perceived dissonance," because our ears all hear the same way, and 1:1 will always be the ultimate consonance.

The "problem" arises when we are no longer sure of what _specific pitch_ that reference is, which will be the 1:1 we refer all other notes to.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

And, people. get. bored.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The "harmonic truth" and "constancy" of the ratio 1:1 will always be unchanging, regardless of "perceived dissonance," because our ears all hear the same way, and 1:1 will always be the ultimate consonance.

The "problem" arises when we are no longer sure of what *specific pitch* that reference is, which will be the 1:1 we refer all other notes to.

Tonality "broke down" because composers no longer wished to "resolve" dissonance back to a *particular *keynote or 1:1, not because "dissonance was suddenly seen as more consonant. Remember, sonance is absolute, in reference to 1:1.

It may not matter to our dear moderator Huilunsoiiaja, but it does matter to me, because I see a fundamental "truth" in the harmonic model, which does not change with trends or styles.

Schoenberg saw this as well, and his 12-tone music was more "unresolvedly dissonant" *not* because of style or trend, but because his system no longer recognized a keynote (1:1) as the reference, and therefore saw no need to resolve into more consonant areas to 1:1.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

same reason monophonic modality broke down and became polyphonic modality, same reason polyphonic modality broke down and became semi-tonal then tonal polyphony... _and all with absolutely no maths allowed_, having nothing whatsoever to do with the caprices of human whims.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Because it's a system of the angels, and most people today are the devil.


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## Guest (Aug 21, 2014)

I really wish millionrainbows would stop flaunting his knowledge of harmonic ratios and fractions that basically say nothing that can't already be described with intervals and whatnot. Its like talking about music in terms of actual frequencies because notes like "A" and "C" would be too plebe for him.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Atonality was invented to take the pressure off of modern composers so they wouldn't have to be compared to Beethoven.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> Atonality was invented to take the pressure off of modern composers so they wouldn't have to be compared to Beethoven.


Atonality was invented _in order to take Beethoven into account_


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## Guest (Aug 21, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Dissonance and consonance (hitherto referred to as "sonance") are not qualities which change with perception, taste, familiarity, or the times....


Not sure why this point is so important to you. Sure, ratios are ratios. That's just math and nothing to do with perception. But music is not math or ratios, however much it may use both or be explicable by either. Music is sounds perceived by humans.



millionrainbows said:


> our ears all hear the same way


And this, too. It is like an item of faith. Our ears do work the same way, by vibrating sympathetically with whatever else is out there vibrating. But it is obviously and demonstrably wrong as a conclusion about perception, as witness any conversation anywhere about anything. In an equation in which there are objects and events and perceivers, to leave the perceivers out of it, or to pretend that all perceivers are the same, just seems daft.

It's like that tree falling in a forest. A tree falling in an empty (of ears) forest will cause the kind of waves which, given an ear or two, would in turn cause what we call sound. But to talk about sound without talking about ears, or about the brains (each one different) that the ears are hooked up to, seems futile at best.

The math is fine. 1:1 is certainly a ratio and a simple one. None simpler. And 7:23 is a ratio, too. Less simple. No argument there. But the words "consonance" and "dissonance" don't refer simply to a bunch of ratios. They refer to receptors as well, or even _primarily,_ and the receptors are all different. If they weren't, we would have no disagreement about the sounds of Stockhausen's _Hymnen._ That we all hear the sounds by our ears working the same way is one thing. But some people liking the sounds and some people disliking the sounds should be a big, fat clue that there are more things than one.


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

It is one of my missions in life to fully comprehend a post by millionrainbows on music theory.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

^^^Good luck with that!!! :lol:


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Entropy FTW.

Astragalus is the largest genera of flowering plants[15 characters]


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

The Oracle always wins in the end. All balance must be broken.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

As somebody who is fairly comfortable with technical music jargon, I often find myself trying to find ways of explaining musical concepts to non-literate musicians and to non-musicians, trying to find ways of cutting through the jargon to make it easier to understand for people who haven't studied it for years because many of the folks who are my friends and loved ones don't do music... but I still want to tell them about it. Honestly Million, it feels like you try to go in the opposite direction, to try and make your discussions of theory as overly complicated as possible as if to make them impenetrable.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

While I agree that the more mathmatical something becomes, the more suspicious one should be, I also try not to get put off by it too much. After all, the mathmatical nature of most music is quite evident. Compared to other subjects of interest, where mathmatics are usually employed to obscure things and deceive, I find much merit in it with regard to music. The relationship between human perception and scientific facts is always intriguing, the more so if there apears to be no apparent relationship to begin with.
As to the specific topic of tonality and its breakdown, I would hesitate to give monocausal explanations. The concept of dissolution was a broad cultural phenomenon. In fact, it might be an everlasting, ever-present one. In music, I feel that many composers contributed their part to it, for different reasons I suppose and with different ideas in mind. If one wanted to see this as a process that included, among others, Wagner, Debussy, Mahler, Scriabin and Schoenberg, it seems to me that that tree was cut down by a whole bunch of lumberjacks.
But each contribution has its significance deserves its place.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Vesuvius said:


> Because it's a system of the angels, and most people today are the devil.


Angels are boring


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> From another thread, I quote some guy, who contended that "sonance" was the culprit. He said that a *consonant* interval stays at rest, and that *dissonance* encourages "movement" to resolve.


Dissonance is indeed one of the driving factors of what is called 'forward motion' in music.



> Tonality is simply a harmonic model.


Not necessarily, tonailty is both melodic and harmonic. The leading tone which establishes the root as the basis of the scale is also recognizable if you have a piece with only one voice.



> The keynote is the tonality, and all other notes of the octave it is in relate to it fractionally, as ratios. This is the same way lesser harmonics relate to a fundamental.


Harmonics is simply a different name for the ratios you describe, are you sure you don't mean chords instead of harmonics?



> Dissonance and consonance (hitherto referred to as "sonance") are not qualities which change with perception, taste, familiarity, or the times; they are absolute values which are unchanging.
> The most absolute consonance is, and will always be, 1:1. All other fractional divisions are gradually more dissonant as they deviate from 1:1, such as 2:3, 3:4, 4:5, 5:6, 6:7, 7:8, 8:9, and so on. Going left towards 1:1, the intervals become simple and more consonant; going to the right, they become more dissonant.


That's not quite true actually. For example, in jazz any note that is at least a major 9nth away from another chord tone is considered to be consonant. If you have a c major seventh chord(C E G B) the 9th D and sixth A are considered to be consonant because the 9th doesn't create a minor 9nth with the root and the sixth doesn' create a minor 9nth with the 5th, the 11th is considered to be dissonant because it creates a minor 9nth with the 3rd. I actually wouldn' have recognized those upper extensions as dissonant because I came to classical after I listened to a lot of jazz.



> _Tonality eventually broke down, not because "dissonance became perceived as consonant," but because of excessive modulation, which degraded the home key._ Modulation is a harmonic sleight-of-hand which draws the ear/brain to a new and different 1:1 or home key reference.
> 
> Harmonic function (i.e. root movement) gained so many double-meanings via modulation that it became _ambiguous,_ and it became unclear where "home" (1:1) was. Harmonic function broke down, because the "reference note" (1:1) became obscured or unclear, because of excessive modulation.


You talk about it as if it wasn't the intention of the composer to make the tonality ambiguous, for them it was just another tool to make interesting music.



> This breakdown of tonality had nothing to do with perceived consonance and dissonance, but with unknown or ambiguous reference to a key note.


That's not really true, Wagner's Tristan was so controversial because it did away the notion that dissonances had to be resolved, to relieve the tension, it opened up the possibilities for more acceptance of dissonance while at the same time undermining the traditional ideas about tonality.



> Thus, the "harmonic truth" and "constancy" of the ratio 1:1 will always be unchanging, regardless of "perceived dissonance," because our ears all hear the same way, and 1:1 will always be the ultimate consonance.


It will always be the ultimate consonance but consonance is not relevant without context, it is all about what kind of meaning the composers impart on that interval. If you write a piece in dissonant counterpoint a consonant 5th or octave will stand out as wrong because it doesn't match the overall concept of the piece.



> The "problem" arises when we are no longer sure of what _specific pitch_ that reference is, which will be the 1:1 we refer all other notes to.


Why is that a problem? For me the one of the things that makes music so beautiful is that we can impart so many different meanings and uses in the same 2 notes.


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## Guest (Aug 22, 2014)

To build on the positive spin given things by Piwikiwi, I'd like to propose a wee change in metaphors. Instead of breaking down, how about flowering?

In the beginning was a seed. The seed stirred and began putting out tendrils, roots into the earth and a stem into the air. Off the stem grew branches. Off the branches grew smaller branches and leaves. 

And eventually, after everything was ready, flowers. Flowers and fruit. 

Asking why tonality "broke down" is like asking why plants eventually make flowers and fruit instead of just more branches and leaves.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> _Tonality eventually broke down, not because "dissonance became perceived as consonant," but because of excessive modulation, which degraded the home key._ Modulation is a harmonic sleight-of-hand which draws the ear/brain to a new and different 1:1 or home key reference.


You can only modulate like that if you have some form of equal or even temperament which allows enharmonic modulation. I'm raising this because I'm thinking about harp music and how the harp only became an orchestral instrument when it acquired levers and became fully diatonic. If you stick within a Celtic framework,then you have instruments with specific ranges and tunings which do not allow full modulation. You get something similar with Buxtehude where his instrument may have been "mean tuned" with all the problems of wolf fifths that that implies and hence limited his range of modulation.

Even so, in the late sixteenth, early seventeenth centuries we were seeing something like equal temperament in works by Bull and Byrd in the Fitzwilliam Virginal book where they were exploring the possibilities of enharmonic modulation as a way of "spicing up" their music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> Not sure why this point is so important to you. Sure, ratios are ratios. That's just math and nothing to do with perception.


No. While it's true that ratios are expressed numerically, *these ratios are models of vibration which exist in reality, on the surface of the eardrum. *Our eardrums vibrate in exactly the same way. A 1:1 vibration on the eardrum would be a much simpler wave-pattern than a 10:3.

Someguy, if you are "not sure why this point is so important" to me, it is because you have missed a basic point. You need to really think about this.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> As somebody who is fairly comfortable with technical music jargon, I often find myself trying to find ways of explaining musical concepts to non-literate musicians and to non-musicians, trying to find ways of cutting through the jargon to make it easier to understand for people who haven't studied it for years because many of the folks who are my friends and loved ones don't do music... but I still want to tell them about it. Honestly Million, it feels like you try to go in the opposite direction, to try and make your discussions of theory as overly complicated as possible as if to make them impenetrable.


No; it's just that when I hear a mistaken cliche like someguy spouted, that_ "when, as inevitably happens, a dissonance becomes perceived as consonant,"_ it compels me to clear it up. There's only one way to explain it, and you have to have some background. Sonance is not just a perception; it is also, and primarily, a relation of two frequencies which we hear, and this relation is constant.

Sorry if it sounds too "high falootin" for you.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Here's a very simple way of explaining it.

*The interval C-G (G-C). 
*
If we have a root movement of G to C, we need context to know what kind of relation this is. If G is a dominant, then the move to C is called a V-I. If the G is the root, then the move to C is a I-IV.

*G to C *(V-I) is a fifth (3:2).
*G to C *(I-IV) is a fourth (4:5).

The V-I (3:2) is* less dissonant,* because it is resolving in the direction of home,_ *(1:1).*_

The I-IV (4:5) is _*more dissonant*_ because it is going away from home*(1:1).*

We perceive these as more or less dissonant because of their relation to 1:1, not because of "taste" or preference. Simpler ratios are automatically received on the eardrum's surface as *simpler vibrations.

Also, this is how tonality works: all notes or root stations are heard in relation to the key note. Their "dissonance" or "consonance" is determined by this relation to 1:1, not by any other considerations or perceptions.

Any "cognition" of this physical phenomenon happens after this fact.

Thus, the "truth" of tonality.
*


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

And actually, SOMEGUY, you are doing serial music a disservice to say its intervals are "not considered dissonant because in our modern era we can tolerate "dissonance" aesthetically now." 

A fourth is still a fourth, a fifth is still a fifth, and we hear them exactly the way we always heard them, just like Bach heard them, because they still produce exactly the same kind of ripple on the human eardrum that they always did, and always will.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I'll answer this section by section in successive posts.

_* Originally Posted by millionrainbows:
*_
_*From another thread, I quote some guy, who contended that "sonance" was the culprit. He said that a consonant interval stays at rest, and that dissonance encourages "movement" to resolve.*_



Piwikiwi said:


> Dissonance is indeed one of the driving factors of what is called 'forward motion' in music.
> 
> I never disputed that. You failed to mention that sonance can work in both directions, depending on what the goal is, away or from the home key.
> _*
> ...


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> I'll answer this section by section in successive posts.
> 
> _* Originally Posted by millionrainbows:
> *_
> ...


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

BurningDesire said:


> Honestly Million, it feels like you try to go in the opposite direction, to try and make your discussions of theory as overly complicated as possible as if to make them impenetrable.


FWIW, I enjoy reading some erudite discussion by people trained in music who really do understand what they're talking about. As a musical illiterate, I feel that, while much of it is beyond my grasp, I really do learn something. I feel that this forum must cater to all levels of classical music understanding, appreciation, performance, composing, education, criticism, etc.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

I saw this thread and looked for an explanation of moving up the harmonic series over time - found it hear and it's kinda neat and maybe of interest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_of_the_dissonance


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

^ I get it, but I could equally well take it as gibberish


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

brotagonist said:


> FWIW, I enjoy reading some erudite discussion by people trained in music who really do understand what they're talking about. As a musical illiterate, I feel that, while much of it is beyond my grasp, I really do learn something. I feel that this forum must cater to all levels of classical music understanding, appreciation, performance, composing, education, criticism, etc.


I am formally educated in music theory and these post are a really really inefficient and overcomplicated way of saying really basic stuff. You don't need any knowledge of music theory to enjoy music, if I would recommend learning anything music theory related it would be about form such as sonata form, nocturnes etc because you don't really need much prior knowledge to learn the basics of those and you will recognised what you have learned immediately.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I find a basic ability to read music quite handy when reading books on various composers and their works. Many contain musical examples, and being able to read those examples (however haltingly) helps in understanding what the author's talking about!


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## Guest (Aug 23, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> No; it's just that when I hear a mistaken cliche like someguy spouted, that_ "when, as inevitably happens, a dissonance becomes perceived as consonant,"_ it compels me to clear it up. There's only one way to explain it, and you have to have some background. Sonance is not just a perception; it is also, and primarily, a relation of two frequencies which we hear, and this relation is constant.





millionrainbows said:


> And actually, SOMEGUY, you are doing serial music a disservice to say its intervals are "not considered dissonant because in our modern era we can tolerate "dissonance" aesthetically now."
> 
> A fourth is still a fourth, a fifth is still a fifth, and we hear them exactly the way we always heard them, just like Bach heard them, because they still produce exactly the same kind of ripple on the human eardrum that they always did, and always will.


You might think you hear a fifth just as Bach did, and just as everyone else did, but as someguy says, you can't take the listeners' perception out of the equation. No two listeners are the same. The issue is not whether something can be described musically (or, worse, mathematically) but how it is heard.

Last night, my son, wife and I were listening to Haukur Tomasson's _Magma _- its UK premiere at the Proms. They both said it was making their ears bleed; I was enjoying it. We were all listening to the same musical/mathematical structure, but our perceptions were completely different. Something happens between the ripples on the eardrum and the brain's 'decision' to hear music that _sounds _consonant or dissonant. I'd say it was exposure and experience (as well as wilfulness on the part of my family!)

However, for some people, whilst exposure to increasingly dissonant music can dull their pain, they may never hear it as consonant. Familiarity and decision-making work together in this - it is not just a passive response to an immutable stimulus.


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## Ian Lawson (Aug 23, 2014)

Good morning,

I hope you don’t mind me jumping into this thread with my inaugural post. 

Why did tonality break down? is not as interesting a question as ‘Why would anyone think to ask why tonality broke down’

At the obvious (literal) end of the scale tonality hasn’t broken down - it still works the same as it’s always worked. I think it’s more useful (and accurate) to think in terms of tonality diversifying rather than breaking down. 

Atonality as a concept only really exists in relation to tonality. It is possible to hear some kinds ‘atonality’ is if it where at one end of a (tonal) scale. Other kinds of ‘atonality’ arise from what might might otherwise be described as ‘modality’ which will have various and different sort of connections to ‘conventional’ tonality. There is also the issue of functional tonality and various shades of non-functional tonality, not to mention dissonance v. consonance - to me, the interesting thing about harmony is the way that the same combination of intervals (chord!) can be perceived as either being ‘consonant‘ or ‘dissonant‘ depending on the musical context.

However, having said all this I sort of do understand why the original question is often asked. Here’s an anecdote: At a UK university new-music debate (perhaps more than a few years ago!) One of resident young turks tried to convince the audience that the Beatles were irrelevant and worthless on the grounds that their music contained nothing that couldn’t be found in Schubert. A protestation from the floor that The Beatles sounded nothing like Schubert was dismissed as a mere subjective irrelevance. I guess for that young turk tonality had broken down - the only thing he had to understand about tonal music was that it was tonal and therefore of no further value. Now, of course, none of this would matter a jot if this dismissal of tonality was merely the opinion of a few people. But it isn’t as simple as that. Despite the fact that hardly anyone has given up finding value in (even new) tonal music there was (and, to a point, still is) a elite of influential opinion-makers/commissioners/distributers of public funds etc. that do (to all extent and purpose) act as if they think tonality has broken down and is of no further value. BTW, that young turk, as well as some of his cohort went on to be a relatively significant part of that ‘elite’


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Tonality, it seems, arose from "the breakdown" of modality. 

When tonality arrived, it killed "the true tonality of that time." 
Tsk, Tsk, nasty tonality.


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## Guest (Aug 23, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> No. While it's true that ratios are expressed numerically, *these ratios are models of vibration which exist in reality, on the surface of the eardrum. *Our eardrums vibrate in exactly the same way. A 1:1 vibration on the eardrum would be a much simpler wave-pattern than a 10:3.
> 
> Someguy, if you are "not sure why this point is so important" to me, it is because you have missed a basic point. You need to really think about this.


This is why I wonder why this point is so important to you. This is basically what I have already agreed is true. Look at my post, mill. I say there that a 1:1 ratio is simple. What you persistently leave out is the person whose ears are vibrating. I hear a sound that can be expressed as 7:23 and think "Sweet!" Someone else, even though their physical ears are vibrating the same as mine (exactly the same is probably not really true), hears that same sound and thinks "Hideous."

That's what you keep leaving out. And that is what puzzles me. I don't think anyone in the world would argue that !:1 is a more complex ratio than 7:23. But you seem to be very concerned that people understand that 1:1 is simpler. But everyone already does.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> This is why I wonder why this point is so important to you. This is basically what I have already agreed is true. Look at my post, mill. I say there that a 1:1 ratio is simple. What you persistently leave out is the person whose ears are vibrating. I hear a sound that can be expressed as 7:23 and think "Sweet!" Someone else, even though their physical ears are vibrating the same as mine (exactly the same is probably not really true), hears that same sound and thinks "Hideous."
> 
> That's what you keep leaving out. And that is what puzzles me. I don't think anyone in the world would argue that !:1 is a more complex ratio than 7:23. But you seem to be very concerned that people understand that 1:1 is simpler. But everyone already does.


I'm sure the reason why all that is left out is precisely because it is too human, too erratic, and it does not at all fit in with the numbers... including those elements would just throw off, or out the window, those otherwise perfect and symmetrical results.

Just remove the human ear as connected to the human mind from the equation and then it all works out _just perfectly._ never mind that is in a universe where sound does not matter or even exist, _because there is no sound due to that "atmosphere" being an absolute vacuum._


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Piwikiwi said:


> ...these post are a really really inefficient and overcomplicated way of saying really basic stuff.


That is millionrainbows' hallmark  We know what to expect.



Piwikiwi said:


> You don't need any knowledge of music theory to enjoy music, if I would recommend learning anything music theory related it would be about form such as sonata form, nocturnes etc....


I agree. All you need to do is listen with the mind. I agree that knowing musical forms helps one understand where a piece is going. But, as KenOC will say in post #30, an ability to read music can be a boon to understanding. I hope to be able to acquire this ability one day (soonish).

And for those of us, like me, who like to understand things, a great deal of enjoyment comes from knowing: knowing the how, the why...


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Tonality didn't break down — or do anything else for that matter. It is an abstract concept incapable of any kind of action. Framing the question in this way, or taking the question so framed seriously, buys into a mistaken world view in which some kind of organic, teleologic process inhabits musical materials themselves. This mistake fosters an egregiously misguided evolutionary view of music history and divorces music from the minds who create and appreciate it. If one wishes to address any of the real issues surrounding stylistic change, such an approach is barren. Instead, one must explore why composers — real, actual, individual composers — might have made the compositional decisions they did. Which is to say that Ian Lawson (welcome!) was on to something.


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## Ian Lawson (Aug 23, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> Tonality didn't break down - or do anything else for that matter. It is an abstract concept incapable of any kind of action.


I agree completely. In fact I could have made my point clearer by saying that it's the composers that have diversified - not tonality.

I wonder also if you mean by an 'evolutionary view' the often-found notion that music should, indeed must, 'progress'. Sometimes I have thought this idea has led to some people deciding in advance how the future of music ought to played out (usually in some sort of metaphorical straight line) thus making what composers actually write and what audiences actually listen to vulnerable to criticism and categorization based on a 'history' that hasn't actually happened yet.

Thanks for the welcome!


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Tonality didn't break _down_ so much as it broke _up_, allowing things which had previously been outside the whole to fill the spaces in between the fragments. The resulting compound is dense, rich, and multitudinous.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Tonality, modality, atonality, scale and tuning 'systems,' leading tones, common practice harmony -- the entire lot / the whole ball of was / the complete kit 'n' caboodle -- _are all conceits_.

After a while, those working within one set of conceits will expand those conceits to 'something else' or radically change them in order that the medium does for them what they want.

The big thing to remember is the 'systems' are synthetic conceits which are not in any way 'obeying natural laws,' or similar nonsense. With that in hand, whatever anyone does within the medium should no longer alarm


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Tonality, modality, atonality, scale and tuning 'systems,' leading tones, common practice harmony -- the entire lot / the whole ball of was / the complete kit 'n' caboodle -- _are all conceits_.
> 
> After a while, those working within one set of conceits will expand those conceits to 'something else' or radically change them in order that the medium does for them what they want.
> 
> The big thing to remember is the 'systems' are synthetic conceits which are not in any way 'obeying natural laws,' or similar nonsense. With that in hand, whatever anyone does within the medium should no longer alarm


This is a great, sane, and reasonable answer Petr. Indeed, there are different scales, tuning systems, harmonic rules, etc. and those are just constructions to make different kinds of music. No one of them is more spiritual than the other. The spirituality comes from the effectiveness of the expression within the musical system.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

SeptimalTritone said:


> This is a great, sane, and reasonable answer Petr. Indeed, there are different scales, tuning systems, harmonic rules, etc. and those are just constructions to make different kinds of music. No one of them is more spiritual than the other. The spirituality comes from the effectiveness of the expression within the musical system.


...Topping that off -- re: acoustics: 
no particular 'set of numbers' are the one and only necessarily 'true way' of any of it. You like and extol the music written in a 17 pitch to the octave scale, those acoustic scientists who favor / believe in that music will point to 'the perfect and beautiful number ratios' which prove that 17 pitch scale to be the golden child of them all... as per their taste, or compulsion, lol.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Tonality hasn't broken down. To the extent that dissonance has lost its sense of humor, _it_ has broken down. Haydn to Ligeti though... it was a long run.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ukko said:


> Tonality hasn't broken down. To the extent that dissonance has lost its sense of humor, _it_ has broken down. Haydn to Ligeti though... it was a long run.


Tonality broken down? Tell that to 95% of the people in the world who enjoy music. You may get some strange looks...

Perhaps especially if they don't understand the language you're speaking, of course. :lol:


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Tonality is like the universe, ever expanding! The fact that the members of the Flat Earth Music Society is protesting this is just a sign that it takes some imagination to accept the pear shape of the world!

/ptr


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

The doctors say, too much stress, not enough sleep or exercise. But tonality will be ok with some rest.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> The doctors say, too much stress, not enough sleep or exercise. But tonality will be ok with some rest.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Piwikiwi said:


> I don't want to be rude but those ratio (sic) you are do (sic) exited (sic) about is (sic) really basic, (sic) it is really the first thing they discussed in my music theory class in collg. (sic)


What's that got to do with the discussion?



Piwikiwi said:


> Also the interval between E and F# is a major ninth not a minor ninth, (sic) that would be an F.


Whoops! my mistake. I meant minor ninth; plus, I gave the wrong chord. The #11 would be F#, so I should have said:
"C-E-G-B-D-F#-A does contain a dissonance, F#-G, a minor ninth, or in-octave, a minor second (16:15). You didn't mention that part. But I don't see how jazz chords are relevant to what I'm attempting to convey.



Piwikiwi said:


> Harmonics has (sic) a very specific meaning in music theory and it (sic) has nothing to do with chords. It is a term which describes the playing of certain overtones as an extended technique, (sic) you can play harmonics on violin, harp or saxophone for example.


I'm talking about root movement, not chords or common-practice resolution of dissonances. A "harmonic model" is not "harmonics" as played on an instrument.



Piwikiwi said:


> Your lack of certain knowledge points to me to you are clearly noy (sic) formally educated in music theory. That's okay but you are really just describing very basic stuff in a very bloated and complicated way.


What does this have to do with root movement? My (bloated) personal life is too boring to discuss here.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> You might think you hear a fifth just as Bach did, and just as everyone else did, but as someguy says, you can't take the listeners' perception out of the equation. No two listeners are the same. The issue is not whether something can be described musically (or, worse, mathematically) but how it is heard.


Oh, you're so close, MacLeod, but no cigar. Yes, perception of intervals and dissonance is very much dependent on perception of the listener, if he can hear them as they are, and his ear/brain cognition. That's because sonance must be heard in relation to a reference (1:1).

1. minor seventh (C-Bb) 9:16
2. major seventh (C-B) 8:15
3. major second (C-D) 8:9
4. minor sixth (C-Ab) 5:8
5. minor third (C-Eb) 5:6
6. major third (C-E) 4:5
7. major sixth (C-A) 3:5
8. perfect fourth (C-F) 3:4
9. perfect fifth (C-G) 2:3
10. octave (C-C') 1:2
11. unison (C-C) 1:1

The intervals have a dissonant/consonant quality determined by their ratio, all in relation to a "keynote" or unity of 1; our ears/brain experience this as an instantaneous visceral sensation.

Note, however, that the quality of the interval ratio itself is constant, and does not depend on "qualitative" perception, but only upon "naked" perception of the eardrum.

If an interval is heard in* isolation,* then we must consider* the octave* to be "1" and the two notes to be the fractional expression in relation to the octave. This is the way serial music is listened to. There is no specific reference pitch; intervals are heard in terms of their "size" or number of half-steps they contain.

If an interval is heard in the context of a key area, then the keynote is the reference. Thus, a fifth (seven half-steps) of C-G in the key of C can be heard as consonant, since C is one of the constituent parts of the interval and is also the key note;

...but if the fifth is D-A in the key of C, this will be heard as more dissonant, because of its context in the key of C.

Still, both intervals are 3:2, and are consonant in themselves.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Thus, my dissatisfaction with someguy's view of why tonality lead to modernism:



some guy said:


> The system of tonality was used for several hundred years, and was pretty persistently stretched from era to era, from year to year, from piece to piece. Part of that is inherent in the system. It encourages development, both within a piece and from piece to piece (and era to era). Dissonance is the primary principle. And when, as inevitably happens, a dissonance becomes perceived as consonant, it no longer functions to produce the sense of movement that is tonality's raison d'être.
> 
> By the early 1900s, many prominent composers felt that there were no longer any dissonances that were compelling, that absolutely called out to be resolved, i.e. that needed to move to something else. Any chord could move to any other chord. So composers who felt this way began trying out other ways to decide, as composers, how to get from one thing to the next. Schoenberg's ways are well known (though still imperfectly understood). There were many other ways, including increasingly ways that had nothing to do with managing pitches at all (which is what tonality and serialism both do). And eventually, there were composers that even gave up the whole idea that you had to decide how to get from one thing to the next, that you had to manage anything.


I will address each statement separately:


some guy said:


> ...(tonality) encourages development, both within a piece and from piece to piece...


Yes, but you are talking about _forward movement through time._ This _horizontal _dimension of "harmonic movement" and function came second, _after_ it was derived from the _vertical_ dimension of harmonic tension which resulted from coincidences of polyphony.

This is how tonality developed, as any text on Medieval or Baroque music will tell you. If there is any question about this, refer to other authorities. I accept it as a given.

The real problem lies not in the relative dissonance or consonance of intervals in and of themselves (see chart), but in our ability to relate these intervals in a meaningful way, _through time,_ to a key center. This involves _cognition in time, not simply instantaneous perception_ by the ear of sonance.



some guy said:


> ...when, as inevitably happens, a dissonance becomes perceived as consonant,* it no longer functions to produce the sense of movement that is tonality's raison d'être.*


Well, really, it is the _adding of chromatic pitches, which can serve as new key references, and their constant changing, or circulation, _that is the real problem;_* not *_the unresolved dissonances in the chords, or any "lack of forward motion" in the progression.

Anyone who has listened to R. Strauss'* Metamorphosen* or Schoenberg's *Pelleas* can attest to this; the music seems *constantly *to be moving, undulating, yet never reaching a goal. There is _too much root movement,_ too many possibilities of a new keynote, for us to make a definitive assessment of where the home key is, even from moment to moment.



some guy said:


> By the early 1900s, many prominent composers felt that *there were no longer any dissonances that were compelling,* that absolutely called out to be resolved, i.e. that needed to move to something else. Any chord could move to any other chord.


No, I don't think that "dissonances" and their need for movement/resolution were the stimulus to modernism. The real issue is the chromatic movement of root stations. Sure, it's true that "unresolved dissonances" create the urge for "movement to resolution," in a tonal sense, but this is really the result of increasing chromaticism, and 12 different possibilities of roots, rather than "the sound of a dissonant chord."

Tonality's hierarchy was breaking down, and this was due to constant movement and instability of chords and their decreasing relation to a root. Tonality's linchpin is the 1:1 key center, to which all intervals are related.

So the "problem" of tonality's breakdown is essentially a "cognitive" problem, based on horizontal through-time perception and cognition of "movement" to a goal, and this cognition became "suspended" by the inability to perceive a key reference; not because of "dissonance."

So what happens when the "1:1" is completelty removed, and is no longer a factor? Then we have intervals themselves, in relation to themselves, existing separately, unto themselves, with no need for a 'home' reference. True, dissonance no longer cries out to be resolved; this is because it is no longer beholden to the more consonant neighbors of 1:1. 
It can exist as it is.


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Atonality was invented to take the pressure off of modern composers so they wouldn't have to be compared to Beethoven.


The longer I think about it, the more truth I find in this.

Schoenberg - who had a good motive to claim otherwise - admitted, "There are plenty of good pieces waiting to be written in C major." But then that puts you in a competition with, say, the Op. 86 Mass in a way that the compositions of, say, Pierre Boulez are spared from.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ribonucleic said:


> The longer I think about it, the more truth I find in this.
> 
> Schoenberg - who had a good motive to claim otherwise - admitted, "There are plenty of good pieces waiting to be written in C major." But then that puts you in a competition with, say, the Op. 86 Mass in a way that the compositions of, say, Pierre Boulez are spared from.


This isn't an "admission", it's a riposte to a student who was trashing Shostakovich for writing using traditional keys. Schoenberg was very conscious of tradition throughout his life and was sure that he would become a part of it (it's happening, albeit slowly). Boulez may have stated that he wanted to throw out tradition, but his music could not exist without Messiaen, Webern, Schoenberg, Varese, even Mahler and Wagner, who have proven to be an influence in the way he treats larger structures.


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## Guest (Aug 25, 2014)

Probably not the best of ideas to see things in terms of competition.

Football games, sure. Music? Probably not.

A contemporary critic thought that Mozart suffered in comparison with Boccherini, because Boccherini had already done everything that could be done in music, leaving Mozart to struggle along trying to till rocky soil. (The critic's metaphor.) When Beethoven came along, another critic noticed that since Mozart and Haydn had already used up all the possible beauties of music, it was left to Beethoven to--wait for it--till the rocky soil.

And when Berlioz came along, yeah, you guessed it. Since Beethoven had already et cetera.

The mass in C is a piece of music. Best way to deal with that is to listen to it and, to the best of your ability, to enjoy it. Using as a club to beat other pieces of music with? Um, not so good. Using it to club music that's not in any sort of key while pretending that one cannot compare smacks (!) of duplicity.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

No, I think atonality was the "natural" consequence of total chromaticism; but too bad it had no "harmonic" provisions built in. So it's like a rather rigid medieval polyphony, using "dodecachords" instead of tetrachords.

I think there are ways, like Bartok, to use "modern" and even "serial" methods of thought without having to resort to tone-rows which are set in concrete. Rahn's book, and post-tonal theory in general, recognizes this.

In other words, I prefer a "harmonic" music which uses ear-friendly constructs such as triads. The "set" theory allows for all sorts of possibilities.


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## Guest (Aug 26, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> That's because sonance must be heard in relation to a reference (1:1).
> 
> 1. minor seventh (C-Bb) 9:16
> 2. major seventh (C-B) 8:15
> ...


For the mathematico-musicologist, this might have some relevance (or do I mean 'meaning'?). Since music is supposed to be experienced, not analysed, and my perception of consonance/dissonance depends on my experience, not on your ratios, I'll claim my cigar.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> In other words, I prefer a "harmonic" music which uses ear-friendly constructs such as triads.


Following the idea of sense-friendliness, I would presume that colour films are more eye-friendly than black/white movies, since the eye is made to distinguish different colors and the brain, presumably, uses colors for discernment and spacial orientation. A colourful image is more natural to the eye/brain, since our environment is colorful too. A black/white image is a distorted representation, since it doesn't occur naturally, except perhaps at night, when all cats are grey.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Funny. I prefer black and white films. Perhaps I'm simply inhuman.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> For the mathematico-musicologist, this (chart of intervals) might have some relevance (or do I mean 'meaning'?). Since music is supposed to be experienced, not analysed, and my perception of consonance/dissonance depends on my experience, not on your ratios, I'll claim my cigar.


All you have to do is go to a piano, play the intervals, and listen.



MacLeod said:


> ...my perception of consonance/dissonance depends on my experience, not on your ratios, I'll claim my cigar.


Then you'd never make it in a music theory class. Tonality is based on these ratios, and any music theory teacher will tell you that a fifth is more consonant than a minor second. This is common knowledge.

I'll be watching when that cigar explodes in your face. 

You can't question stuff like this, McLeod, not if you ever want to learn anything the right way.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Andreas said:


> Following the idea of sense-friendliness, I would presume that colour films are more eye-friendly than black/white movies, since the eye is made to distinguish different colors and the brain, presumably, uses colors for discernment and spacial orientation. A colourful image is more natural to the eye/brain, since our environment is colorful too. A black/white image is a distorted representation, since it doesn't occur naturally, except perhaps at night, when all cats are grey.


Well, there are advantages to seeing in b&w; many predators can only see in B&W, and key on silhouettes and movement. Also, the receptors for B&W are more light-sensitive, and they can see in the dark better. When you look at a very dim star, look slightly away from it, and you can see it better. That's because you have more light-receptors on the sides of your eyeballs.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I would say it was crowd control. By changing to atonalism, it was realized that a lot of listeners would simply be repelled and check out, leaving a more manageable listening base. Yes. I am convinced it's all crowd control.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> For the mathematico-musicologist, this might have some relevance (or do I mean 'meaning'?). Since music is supposed to be experienced, not analysed, and my perception of consonance/dissonance depends on my experience, not on your ratios, I'll claim my cigar.


Consonance and dissonance are terms to indicate a physical thing. 
As wiki says: _Dissonance is caused by the beating between close but non-aligned harmonics_ so it's basically a number and it's the same for all listeners. To say that a person perceives a dissonance as a consonance is like saying that someone perceives red as green, and that that person is colorblind.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

norman bates said:


> Consonance and dissonance are terms to indicate a physical thing.
> As wiki says: _Dissonance is caused by the beating between close but non-aligned harmonics_ so it's basically a number and it's the same for all listeners. To say that a person perceives a dissonance as a consonance is like saying that someone perceives red as green, and that that person is colorblind.


Depends a bit on the context though, for example a perfect fourth is considered to be a dissonant interval in renaissance and baroque counterpoint.


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## Guest (Aug 26, 2014)

norman bates said:


> Consonance and dissonance are terms to indicate a physical thing.
> As wiki says: _Dissonance is caused by the beating between close but non-aligned harmonics_ so it's basically a number and it's the same for all listeners. To say that a person perceives a dissonance as a consonance is like saying that someone perceives red as green, and that that person is colorblind.


Wiki has lots to say about consonance and dissonance, including recognising that



> The definition of consonance has been variously based on experience, frequency, and both physical and psychological considerations


It may be mathematically the same for all listeners, but that does not take account of perception. Your red/green analogy doesn't work.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Consonance and dissonance are terms to indicate a physical thing.
> As wiki says: _Dissonance is caused by the beating between close but non-aligned harmonics_ so it's basically a number and it's the same for all listeners. To say that a person perceives a dissonance as a consonance is like saying that someone perceives red as green, and that that person is colorblind.


It's the same in the ear, but the perception in the brain is quite different, especially _in a particular context_. Music is not heard in the abstract, but creates a context within which all of these intervals are heard. Thus a relative consonance in one instance (say, a major seventh chord in 20th century music) can be perceived as a dissonance in another, absolutely needing to resolve (say, a baroque piece).

Perception of colors also differs given the surrounding colors in a painting.


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## Guest (Aug 26, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> You can't question stuff like this, McLeod, not if you ever want to learn anything the right way.


Of course I can question it. I'm not challenging the notion that 2+2 is 4; I'm questioning whether a mathematical description is all there is to it.

As for the cigar, I don't smoke, so it'll never be lit.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Piwikiwi said:


> Depends a bit on the context though, for example a perfect fourth is considered to be a dissonant interval in renaissance and baroque counterpoint.


there was also a different tuning system in that period


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Wiki has lots to say about consonance and dissonance, including recognising that
> 
> It may be mathematically the same for all listeners, but that does not take account of perception. Your red/green analogy doesn't work.


colors are frequencies, sound are frequencies, I don't know how it could be a wrong example. I'm curious to know what are the psychological considerations, but if you have a A at 440hz our ears should hear 440 vibrations in a second.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> It's the same in the ear, but the perception in the brain is quite different, especially _in a particular context_. Music is not heard in the abstract, but creates a context within which all of these intervals are heard. Thus a relative consonance in one instance (say, a major seventh chord in 20th century music) can be perceived as a dissonance in another, absolutely needing to resolve (say, a baroque piece).
> 
> Perception of colors also differs given the surrounding colors in a painting.


in the sense that if we look from a certain distance a pointillistic painting made of blue and yellow points we see green?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Interestingly, we experience color as shading from green to blue to purple to red to orange to green and back to blue.

View attachment 49867


But that continuous transition from red to blue that we experience has no correspondence with the physics of light. The physics of light is a spectrum from red to violet that doesn't wrap back around on itself. Our experience of the continuity from red to violet is purely a product of our neurons.

So there is a physical basis of light and color but our actual experience of it depends on our neurons.

Our experience of sound must be like that. A good example for me is the octave. We experience two sounds an octave apart as being in some sense "the same" note. If I understand correctly, that's a universal phenomenon. But it's totally arbitrary. There is no objective reason that we would experience a doubling of the frequency that way.

It's easy to imagine some creature with a different neural structure than ours seeing a much wider portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and experiencing color as octaves, so that they would see light with an 880 nm wavelength as in some way "the same" as light with 440 nm and 220 nm and 110 nm wavelengths. That would be precisely as arbitrary as our perception of sound.

Or we could imagine a creature that had a range of hearing like ours but experienced it as a continuous circle (as we do light), so that they would experience a continuous transition from sounds at 20,000 Hz to sounds at 20 Hz and back again. They could create "sound wheels" like our "color wheel" and have no concept of an octave.

So the point is, it's interesting that there is a physical basis for these experiences we have, but we are not just directly experiencing wavelengths of sound and light. Instead, our conscious experience of sound and light are filtered through our nervous systems, which render the sound and light in particular and essentially arbitrary ways. When we start discussing why we experience sounds or colors in certain ways (i.e. dissonance or that green clashes with orange), we're discussing human psychology, not physics.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

science said:


> Interestingly, we experience color as shading from green to blue to purple to red to orange to green and back to blue.
> 
> View attachment 49867
> 
> ...


But unless one have superpowers or some neurological problems we are all humans with a similar perception. There's also the possibility that on this board there's some creature like the one you're imagining with a completely different system to perceive sounds. The fact is that one thing is to say that a person doesn't like dissonance because of his tastes, another is to say that one perceives 20hz as it's 15000hz, the octave not as similar sounds... or a dissonance as a consonance.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

norman bates said:


> there was also a different tuning system in that period


That is really irrelevant in that context, it is because of the tonal context. Here is a nice article that explains it for you
http://www.ars-nova.com/Theory Q&A/Q85.html


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Piwikiwi said:


> That is really irrelevant in that context, it is because of the tonal context. Here is a nice article that explains it for you
> http://www.ars-nova.com/Theory Q&A/Q85.html


 I see what you mean (and what Mahlerian was saying). Anyway isn't that valid for everybody?


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2014)

norman bates said:


> The fact is that one thing is to say that a person doesn't like dissonance because of his tastes, another is to say that one perceives 20hz as it's 15000hz, the octave not as similar sounds... or a dissonance as a consonance.


Just to be clear - _my _reference to 'perception' was not about the mechanics of how the ears work in response to this or that frequency, but about the whole business of subjective perception including the response of the brain as well as the experiences and preferences of the listener. I'm not suggesting that what I hear as 20hz might be heard by someone else as 15000hz!

It seems to me that those who have controlled the production of music over the centuries have declared what is consonant and dissonant, without reference to acoustics, and similarly declared what is acceptable and unacceptable. This attitude has been so ingrained that anyone who suggests that what is subjectively heard is more important than what we are 'told' to hear has received short shrift.

Finally, the fact that there are technical explanations of consonance, dissonance, unstable, and stable does not invalidate that in the final analysis, what the individual 'perceives' (my definition above) with her ears cannot be dictated to.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Just to be clear - _my _reference to 'perception' was not about the mechanics of how the ears work in response to this or that frequency, but about the whole business of subjective perception including the response of the brain as well as the experiences and preferences of the listener. I'm not suggesting that what I hear as 20hz might be heard by someone else as 15000hz!


but the suggestion that one perceives a dissonance as a consonance in a different way from other people is like suggesting that one doesn't hear an octave like similar sounds as in the example made by science (and it's a perfect example, it's the relation of two sounds that are perceived as a consonant interval to our brain). I know that there are things that are not common like synesthesia, perfect pitch, amusia (but the last one is a neurological problem), but normally I think that the perception of the majority of people is the same, considering both ear and brain. I would not argue about different tastes, but it seems to me that someone here is confusing perception with taste.


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2014)

norman bates said:


> I would not argue about different tastes, but it seems to me that someone here is confusing perception with taste.


I wonder who?

I think if there is 'confusion' it's because you can't easily separate w_hat _someone hears (sounds vibrating at a particular frequency) from _how _they understand it. I don't understand the technicalities of acoustics that lie behind the notions of consonance and dissonance, but whatever they are, they shouldn't be allowed to interfere with the aesthetics. To use the term in the article referenced by Pikiwiki, if I hear something traditionally referred to as 'dissonant' as, in fact, pleasant, that is not necessarily a conscious choice, or a matter of taste, whatever is going on in strict acoustic terms. As increasing dissonance has become increasingly acceptable, the term dissonance becomes increasingly unhelpful. However, while there continues to be a debate about what actually goes on between ear and brain (or mind) when music is listened to, I don't expect agreement to be reached on this one.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> I wonder who?
> 
> I think if there is 'confusion' it's because you can't easily separate w_hat _someone hears (sounds vibrating at a particular frequency) from _how _they understand it.


Consider the octave example: two sounds, an A at 440hz and an A at 880hz. What every person understand are two sounds that seem, as science has said, "the same" note. So if this is a perception shared by anybody why should it be different for any other combination of frequencies? If there's someone that "understands" octaves not that way, well, that would be a proof that I'm completely wrong. But I wonder if it's possible.



MacLeod said:


> I don't understand the technicalities of acoustics that lie behind the notions of consonance and dissonance, but whatever they are, they shouldn't be allowed to interfere with the aesthetics. To use the term in the article referenced by Pikiwiki, if I hear something traditionally referred to as 'dissonant' as, in fact, pleasant, that is not necessarily a conscious choice, or a matter of taste, whatever is going on in strict acoustic terms. As increasing dissonance has become increasingly acceptable, the term dissonance becomes increasingly unhelpful. However, while there continues to be a debate about what actually goes on between ear and brain (or mind) when music is listened to, I don't expect agreement to be reached on this one.


But to consider things pleasant or unpleasant is exactly a matter of taste, and even the fact that through history we have accepted more and more dissonance it's not a matter of perception but aesthetics.


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2014)

norman bates said:


> But to consider things pleasant or unpleasant is exactly a matter of taste, and even the fact that through history we have accepted more and more dissonance it's not a matter of perception but aesthetics.


It's a matter of perception _and _aesthetics. How else do you account for my earlier example that two people can listen to the same piece of music and 'hear' something different, regardless of the fact that the same set of sounds and their frequencies are sounding in their ears? It may be a matter of taste - an active, conscious choice made to find something pleasant or unpleasant - but it may just be an instinctive response - not a matter of taste at all.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> It's a matter of perception _and _aesthetics. How else do you account for my earlier example that two people can listen to the same piece of music and 'hear' something different, regardless of the fact that the same set of sounds and their frequencies are sounding in their ears?


Are you referring to this one?



MacLeod said:


> You might think you hear a fifth just as Bach did, and just as everyone else did, but as someguy says, you can't take the listeners' perception out of the equation. No two listeners are the same. The issue is not whether something can be described musically (or, worse, mathematically) but how it is heard.
> 
> Last night, my son, wife and I were listening to Haukur Tomasson's _Magma _- its UK premiere at the Proms. They both said it was making their ears bleed; I was enjoying it. We were all listening to the same musical/mathematical structure, but our perceptions were completely different. Something happens between the ripples on the eardrum and the brain's 'decision' to hear music that _sounds _consonant or dissonant. I'd say it was exposure and experience (as well as wilfulness on the part of my family!)


probably we're using the word perception in a different way. I don't know the piece but to me this is most of all just an example of different tastes, because a piece is much more than just a structure. And with time and experience it's perfectly possible to change mind completely over a piece of music.
A matter of perception to me would be something the discussion on the pitch of Coltrane like the recent one we (me and pikiwiki) have had. He perceives his pitch as flat and I don't. Now, I could have been right or I could have been wrong on that, but in that case I would agree that we're talking of perception. And I can assume that our brain has the possibility to "arrange" the pitch in a certain range to join our expectations.


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2014)

norman bates said:


> Are you referring to this one?
> 
> probably we're using the word perception in a different way. I don't know the piece but to me this is most of all just an example of different tastes, because a piece is much more than just a structure. And with time and experience it's perfectly possible to change mind completely over a piece of music.
> A matter of perception to me would be something the discussion on the pitch of Coltrane like the recent one we (me and pikiwiki) have had. He perceives his pitch as flat and I don't. Now, I could have been right or I could have been wrong on that, but in that case I would agree that we're talking of perception. And I can assume that our brain has the possibility to "arrange" the pitch in a certain range to join our expectations.


Yes, I was referring to that one.

I thought I'd already made clear that when I was using the term 'perception' I did not mean the mechanics by which sounds are received by the ear, but the whole process of reception, processing, and, at a conscious level, determining some aesthetic response and value. It's because tastes can change (not the musical sounds themselves) that it's clear that what was once perceived to be dissonant can be perceived to be less dissonant.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Yes, I was referring to that one.
> 
> I thought I'd already made clear that when I was using the term 'perception' I did not mean the mechanics by which sounds are received by the ear, but by the whole process of reception, processing, and, at a conscious level, determining some aesthetic response and value. It's because tastes can change (not the musical sounds themselves) that it's clear that what was once perceived to be dissonant can be perceived to be less dissonant.


It seems that you are using the term dissonance as a synonimous for unpleasantness...


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2014)

...and round we go...No, I'm not.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Consonance and dissonance are terms to indicate a physical thing.
> As wiki says: _Dissonance is caused by the beating between close but non-aligned harmonics_ so it's basically a number and it's the same for all listeners. To say that a person perceives a dissonance as a consonance is like saying that someone perceives red as green, and that that person is colorblind.


Exactly! You've said it better than I could have!


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Exactly! You've said it better than I could have!


I refer you to Mahlerian's post...

http://www.talkclassical.com/33753-why-did-tonality-break-post712219.html#post712219


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Piwikiwi said:


> Depends a bit on the context though, for example a perfect fourth is considered to be a dissonant interval in renaissance and baroque counterpoint.


I suppose that's because a fourth needs to be resolved down to a third. But that's horizontal movement through time; a just fourth is still a 4:3 ratio, and is considered a consonance in and of itself as an interval.

This exception merely obscures the issue, and does nothing to really invalidate what norman bates said:



norman bates said:


> Consonance and dissonance are terms to indicate a physical thing.
> As wiki says: _Dissonance is caused by the beating between close but non-aligned harmonics_ so it's basically a number and it's the same for all listeners. To say that a person perceives a dissonance as a consonance is like saying that someone perceives red as green, and that that person is colorblind.


Also from Wik: 
_The perfect fourth is a perfect interval like the unison, octave, and perfect fifth, and it is a sensory consonance.

In common practice harmony, however, it is considered a *stylistic dissonance in certain contexts,* namely in two-voice textures and whenever it appears above the bass.

_Get that word? *Stylistic.*Get this through your skulls, people: Consonance and dissonance in the real sense are not matters of taste, style, differences in perception, or of artistic license; they are a physical phenomenon of vibration, represented by ratios.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Wiki has lots to say about consonance and dissonance, including recognising that
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> It's the same in the ear, but the perception in the brain is quite different, especially _in a particular context_. Music is not heard in the abstract, but creates a context within which all of these intervals are heard. Thus a relative consonance in one instance (say, a major seventh chord in 20th century music) can be perceived as a dissonance in another, absolutely needing to resolve (say, a baroque piece).
> 
> Perception of colors also differs given the surrounding colors in a painting.


Yeah, but red is still red, and green is still green. You are talking about stylistic differences, not vibrations.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Of course I can question it. I'm not challenging the notion that 2+2 is 4; I'm questioning whether a mathematical description is all there is to it.


There are stylistic considerations, but those are secondary.

The reason tonality broke down is not because of stylistic considerations of dissonance, but because there was no definitive key note, which is a necessary condition of tonality's hierarchy and horizontal function. Let's try to stay on-point.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

norman bates said:


> there was also a different tuning system in that period


And there's a reason it's called a "perfect" fourth; aside from stylistic practices, it's a consonance.


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> There are stylistic considerations, but those are secondary.
> 
> The reason tonality broke down is not because of stylistic considerations of dissonance, but because there was no definitive key note, which is a necessary condition of tonality's hierarchy and horizontal function. Let's try to stay on-point.


As others have said, tonality didn't break down. Wrong question.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

science said:


> We experience two sounds an octave apart as being in some sense "the same" note. If I understand correctly, that's a universal phenomenon. But it's totally arbitrary. There is no objective reason that we would experience a doubling of the frequency that way.


What? Totally arbitrary? This is called "pitch equivalency," and the frequency is doubled, so we hear it as the same pitch, only an octave higher, and very objective.

That's because every other wave of the higher note is in synch with the lower note's waves. "Every other wave" means "doubled," and every wave of the lower note is in synch with the higher note, so that is a one-to-one correspondence;

...and the other 'extra' waves occur between these main waves, so that "doubles" the frequency.

Two plus two equals four; how much simpler and objective can it be?



science said:


> It's easy to imagine some creature with a different neural structure than ours...Or we could imagine a creature that had a range of hearing like ours but experienced it as a continuous circle...


Sorry, you lost me. I'm not talking about science fiction.



science said:


> ...we are not just directly experiencing wavelengths of sound and light. Instead, our conscious experience of sound and light are filtered through our nervous systems, which render the sound and light in particular and essentially arbitrary ways. When we start discussing why we experience sounds or colors in certain ways (i.e. dissonance or that green clashes with orange), we're discussing human psychology, not physics.


Psychology and stylistic considerations are all part of the same definition; but sonance is constant, and is experienced as *sound* in the same way for all "human" anthropods from the planet Earth.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Piwikiwi said:


> That is really irrelevant in that context, it is because of the tonal context. Here is a nice article that explains it for you.


This part of the link is relevant:



> Acoustically, then, the 4th is stronger than the minor third, but it is simultaneously less stable *in a world of triadic harmony* (re: stylistic) because it so obviously is an inversion of the even stronger perfect fifth. Here we see how *perception depends on both physics and culture:* (re: stylistic) the physics forms the basis of the effect, but our familiarity with triadic harmony leads us to expect certain things, too. *(after the fact)*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So this "stylistic norm" has an exception built-in!

Face it; stylistic concerns came after the basic fact of physics, and must not be used to define dissonance.


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> This part of the link is relevant:
> 
> So this "stylistic norm" has an exception built-in!
> 
> Face it; stylistic concerns came after the basic fact of physics, and must not be used to define dissonance.


Face it; dissonance and consonance cannot be defined only by physics.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> ...and round we go...No, I'm not.


Let me ask you a question, if you listen a piece that is very consonant and you don't like it, do you perceives it as more dissonant?


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2014)

norman bates said:


> Let me ask you a question, if you listen a piece that is very consonant and you don't like it, do you perceives it as more dissonant?


No. Let me return with a question. Is this, from Prokofiev's Symphony No. 2 full of dissonance? (The 1st movement especially).






This, I like.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Let me ask you a question, if you listen a piece that is very consonant and you don't like it, do you perceives it as more dissonant?


Bach's Art of Fugue has lots of dissonance. Mozart's 40th Symphony has lots of dissonance. Beethoven's Ninth has lots of dissonance. Wagner's Flying Dutchman overture has lots of dissonance. Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde has lots of dissonance. Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht has lots of dissonance. Debussy's La Mer has lots of dissonance. Berg's Wozzeck has lots of dissonance. Shostakovich's 8th Symphony has lots of dissonance. Babbitt's Philomel has lots of dissonance. Messiaen's Oiseaux exotiques has lots of dissonance.

In none of these cases, though, is "dissonant" the primary character of the work. It's simply a side effect and a part of the music itself.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Face it; dissonance and consonance cannot be defined only by physics.


This is the key point. There is no reason to think that whales or eagles or cats experience sounds the same way we do. There is no reason that some species of bird out there somewhere would not experience octaves as painfully dissonant and a minor second as beautiful. More likely of course our concepts of consonance and dissonance wouldn't make sense to any nonhuman mind. So when we talk about dissonance and consonance we're not talking purely about physics but about human psychology - and probably not even universal to humanity, but limited to particular cultures.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> No. Let me return with a question. Is this, from Prokofiev's Symphony No. 2 full of dissonance? (The 1st movement especially).


Without a doubt. But I've asked this question because it seems that in your opinion the more one listens, the more dissonances "disappear", while it doesn't work the other way. Correct me if I'm wrong.



Mahlerian said:


> Bach's Art of Fugue has lots of dissonance. Mozart's 40th Symphony has lots of dissonance. Beethoven's Ninth has lots of dissonance. Wagner's Flying Dutchman overture has lots of dissonance. Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde has lots of dissonance. Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht has lots of dissonance. Debussy's La Mer has lots of dissonance. Berg's Wozzeck has lots of dissonance. Shostakovich's 8th Symphony has lots of dissonance. Babbitt's Philomel has lots of dissonance. Messiaen's Oiseaux exotiques has lots of dissonance.
> 
> In none of these cases, though, is "dissonant" the primary character of the work. It's simply a side effect and a part of the music itself.


that doesn't certainly mean that all music contains a lot of dissonance, or that there aren't pieces that are more dissonant than others. Unless we want to confute the history of western music, with the story that goes that through the centuries the use of dissonances incresead.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

science said:


> This is the key point. There is no reason to think that whales or eagles or cats experience sounds the same way we do. There is no reason that some species of bird out there somewhere would not experience octaves as painfully dissonant and a minor second as beautiful. More likely of course our concepts of consonance and dissonance wouldn't make sense to any nonhuman mind. So when we talk about dissonance and consonance we're not talking purely about physics but about human psychology - and probably not even universal to humanity, but limited to particular cultures.


I think that we are all humans on this board. Aren't we?


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

If tonality broke down, why didn't Schoenberg just call AAA? If he'd done that, he wouldn't have had to walk 12 miles to the nearest service station.


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2014)

norman bates said:


> Without a doubt. But I've asked this question because it seems that in your opinion the more one listens, the more dissonances "disappear", while it doesn't work the other way. Correct me if I'm wrong.


At the level of an individual listener, yes, the more one listens, the more dissonances can 'disappear' (I'm certainly not arguing that they 'become' consonances in the sense that the actual physics is somehow reversed or confounded). I'm not sure what you mean by 'the other way'.

But more than that, I'm saying that because the whole premise on which dissonance and consonance is based is not just physics, but the history of what has been ruled to be acceptable and unacceptable, it's an unhelpful dimension to insist on. It's not just that _I _can get used to 'dissonance' - it's that 'dissonance' itself is a valueless term when trying to evaluate people's experience of music. I see no use in insisting on the physics when the experience of music is about so much more than the combination of frequencies at which air vibrates.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

norman bates said:


> I think that we are all humans on this board. Aren't we?


Well then it's settled! The physics doesn't matter in itself. The question is not what frequency ratios two notes have, but how our human minds perceive them!

The next thing for us to do is go around the world collecting data on all the different musical traditions and seeing whether we can find any universally true things about human perceptions of sound, and also whether we can find any other patterns. Then maybe we can get around to generalizing about human perceptions of consonance and dissonance.

Then we can understand the Western tradition as one particular example.

Then we can understand my perceptions, your perceptions, millionrainbows' perceptions, and MacLeod's perceptions as particular examples of the current version of that tradition.

That would be far better than generalizing from two or three of us onto humanity as a whole, let alone onto sound in the entire universe.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

norman bates said:


> I think that we are all humans on this board. Aren't we?


Life on TC would be infinitely more exiting if this weren't true!

/ptr


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

The debate over the last few pages can be sorted out quite easily by recognizing that the term dissonance has two completely different kinds of definitions, acoustic ones and musical ones. An acoustic definition takes into account physical laws, a musical one derives from stylistic norms. Acoustically defined dissonances, heard in isolation in some sort of sensory test, will no doubt elicit a great degree of intersubjective agreement as to the qualities of the sensations they evoke. Dissonance as a musical phenomenon is subject to countless variables of stylistic competence, aesthetic preference, and musical context. A dissonance defined musically, and especially in the context of embedding within a specific musical work, will be perceived in wildly different ways by different listeners.



millionrainbows said:


> Face it; stylistic concerns came after the basic fact of physics, and must not be used to define dissonance.


This is nonsense. Dissonance as a musical term (see above) is and always has been defined stylistically. Acoustic dissonance and musical dissonance are different concepts with different definitions and different applications. One does not collapse into the other, one does not take precedence over the other, one does not have ontological priority over the other. MacLeod is talking about one, Norman about the other.

Another distinction this discussion sorely lacks is that between sensation and perception. One might argue that the sensory experience of two people hearing the same set of pitches is largely the same. The term perception, however (and crucially) includes all of the psychological processing that comes upstream from sensation. Two people hearing an interval in isolation might experience precisely the same sensation, yet their perceptions might be quite different. Infinitely more so in the case of a musical utterance.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Without a doubt. But I've asked this question because it seems that in your opinion the more one listens, the more dissonances "disappear", while it doesn't work the other way. Correct me if I'm wrong.


You're conflating three separate things, which is what I was trying to show in my post:

1) Dissonance as an objective quality of the properties of sound, where faster "beating" is caused by interactions between waves of different frequencies.
2) Dissonance as an objective quality of the music itself, in which a tone or group of tones needs resolution.
3) "Dissonance" as perceived by a listener as an unpleasant sound caused by the above.

The first one is absolute, but should be thought of as a sliding scale of more or less consonant rather than an on-off switch of something being consonant or not consonant. We do have the term "imperfect consonance", after all, to describe thirds and sixths. The second one of course does not go away, though what qualifies as dissonant in a piece depends on the context of that individual piece. The third is completely subjective, and related primarily to one's experience and understanding of the music in question. When an unfamiliar harmony is presented, or a familiar one in an unfamiliar context, the brain can end up processing it as noise rather than music. This reaction can change as the music is better understood and becomes more familiar. In that sense, and only in that sense, can a piece of music seem less dissonant over time.



norman bates said:


> that doesn't certainly mean that all music contains a lot of dissonance, or that there aren't pieces that are more dissonant than others. Unless we want to confute the history of western music, with the story that goes that through the centuries the use of dissonances incresead.


I think that rather than "dissonances increasing", we have things that were taken as dissonant (needing to resolve) increasingly treated as consonant (stable and not needing resolution). Seventh chords or tonic 6/4 chords still don't sound consonant in Mozart, no matter how much time has intervened, but they are certainly consonant in Stravinsky and Debussy.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> At the level of an individual listener, yes, the more one listens, the more dissonances can 'disappear' (I'm certainly not arguing that they 'become' consonances in the sense that the actual physics is somehow reversed or confounded). I'm not sure what you mean by 'the other way'.


it seems that you think that the level of dissonance that one perceives is correlated to his experience as a listener: the more one has experience, the more one hear consonant a dissonance.
Frankly I completely disagree with this view. And I doubt that you will find any expert of 
psychoacustics that will say that with very experienced listener will find Crumb's Black angel consonant as a Kenny G. piece.



MacLeod said:


> But more than that, I'm saying that because the whole premise on which dissonance and consonance is based is not just physics, but the history of what has been ruled to be acceptable and unacceptable, it's an unhelpful dimension to insist on. It's not just that _I _can get used to 'dissonance' - it's that 'dissonance' itself is a valueless term when trying to evaluate people's experience of music. I see no use in insisting on the physics when the experience of music is about so much more than the combination of frequencies at which air vibrates.



in the first part of the post you were saying that an experienced listener feels dissonance gradually less dissonant... here you're saying that there's no relation between the feeling of dissonance and experience. I'm really confused.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> You're conflating three separate things, which is what I was trying to show in my post:
> 
> 1) Dissonance as an objective quality of the properties of sound, where faster "beating" is caused by interactions between waves of different frequencies.
> 2) Dissonance as an objective quality of the music itself, in which a tone or group of tones needs resolution.
> 3) "Dissonance" as perceived by a listener as an unpleasant sound caused by the above.


Not at all, I'm referring most of all to the first one.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Not at all, I'm referring most of all to the first one.


Then you will have to agree that the ending of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto is far more consonant than many jazz song endings, being a pretty normal major major seventh chord in first inversion. Context, after all, is completely irrelevant to the acoustic facts of the matter here.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

EdwardBast said:


> This is nonsense. Dissonance as a musical term (see above) is and always has been defined stylistically. Acoustic dissonance and musical dissonance are different concepts with different definitions and different applications. One does not collapse into the other, one does not take precedence over the other, one does not have ontological priority over the other. MacLeod is talking about one, Norman about the other.


I don't know a lot about music theory but I don't get why acoustic dissonance and musical dissonance should be different things. If I play an interval is acoustic and musical.



EdwardBast said:


> Another distinction this discussion sorely lacks is that between sensation and perception. One might argue that the sensory experience of two people hearing the same set of pitches is largely the same. The term perception, however (and crucially) includes all of the psychological processing that comes upstream from sensation. Two people hearing an interval in isolation might experience precisely the same sensation, yet their perceptions might be quite different. Infinitely more so in the case of a musical utterance.


I'm probably simply calling perception what you are considering sensation. 
I've made a parallel with colors: the fact that for some reason I don't like the color (probably an incredibly more difficult topic) red has nothing to do with the fact that i perceives it as red, because the human eye (at least for those who don't have tetrachromacy) elaborates a certain frequence in our notion of red.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Then you will have to agree that the ending of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto is far more consonant than many jazz song endings, being a pretty normal major major seventh chord in first inversion. Context, after all, is completely irrelevant to the acoustic facts of the matter here.


I don't remember it onestly.
But the premise of this discussion is if dissonance could be experienced in a different way by different persons. A musical context could be important but it's the same context for every listener.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> I don't remember it onestly.
> But the premise of this discussion is if dissonance could be experienced in a different way by different persons. A musical context could be important but it's the same context for every listener.


It's not even a question. Dissonance _is_ experienced in a different way by different persons, despite the sound waves being identical. It is also experienced differently depending on the musical context, and both of these things differ depending on the individual. Why do _you_ think some people who are unaccustomed to certain kinds of music (Mahler, Debussy, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bebop) hear them as noise, while others do not?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> It's not even a question. Dissonance _is_ experienced in a different way by different persons, despite the sound waves being identical. It is also experienced differently depending on the musical context, and both of these things differ depending on the individual. Why do _you_ think some people who are unaccustomed to certain kinds of music (Mahler, Debussy, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bebop) hear them as noise, while others do not?


Because of their different taste (and surely they don't perceive those kind of music as "noise" that is a different thing, I mean you know a lot more than me about theory, come on), that is a different and a lot more complex aspect. 
But how can the musical context be different with the same piece and the same score?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Because of their different taste (and surely they don't perceive those kind of music as "noise" that is a different thing, I mean you know a lot more than me about theory, come on), that is a different and a lot more complex aspect.
> But how can the musical context be different with the same piece and the same score?


You really question that people who say they perceive The Rite of Spring or Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony as "noise" actually do? You think it's a matter of personal taste?

I don't. Personal taste does play a role in shaping our experiences and perceptions, to be sure (and thus helps define what we become comfortable with), but it seems far more often that this music is truly perceived as being without melody, which it certainly is not. You yourself have said that you hear _Le marteau sans maitre_ as incomprehensible noise, which I most assuredly do not. There are plenty of pieces of music that don't appeal to me, but I don't hear them as "mere noise".

As for the context, I was referring to the fact that specific harmonies or combinations of notes can be perceived, by the same person, as dissonant in one musical context and consonant in another.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

norman bates said:


> I don't know a lot about music theory but I don't get why acoustic dissonance and musical dissonance should be different things. If I play an interval is acoustic and musical.


Dissonance as a musical concept is defined in a completely different way, roughly: anything that sounds like it possesses tension in need of release (metaphorically, it is like stored kinetic energy in physics). Sometimes an interval can sound like it must be resolved to a different one, even though the musically tense interval is acoustically more consonant than the one to which it resolves(!) The most common example, which someone cited above, is the perfect fourth. Imagine the note C sustained in the bass and above it a descent, A-flat to G to F. In the context of a piece in C minor, that F above the C, a perfect fourth, will (usually) need to resolve down to E-flat. Acoustically, the fourth (C-F) is more consonant than the minor third (C-E-flat), but musically, the fourth is a dissonance and the minor third is a consonance.



norman bates said:


> I'm probably simply calling perception what you are considering sensation.


Yes, I know. What I am pointing out is that the two concepts are not interchangeable and that they have more or less precise definitions in the field of psychology. Using the example of the two intervals above: If one presented them in isolation to experimental subjects, it is likely the fourth (C-F) will be heard as smoother and more consonant than the minor third (C-E-flat). That is to say, the _sensation_ of the fourth is more consonant. If one presents the same intervals in the context I described above, however, someone used to hearing western tonal music will _perceive_ the fourth as a dissonance in need of resolution, whereas someone without this background will not. In this situation, both listeners experience the same _sensations_, but the stylistically competent listener _perceives_ a dissonance the naive listener does not.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> You really question that people who say they perceive The Rite of Spring or Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony as "noise" actually do? You think it's a matter of personal taste?


I've always thought that noise and sound are physically different things. With a sound, you have a fixed pitch. With a noise, you can't determine it. There's a a huge difference between this 



 (noise) and this 



(sound)



Mahlerian said:


> I don't. Personal taste does play a role in shaping our experiences and perceptions, to be sure (and thus helps define what we become comfortable with), but it seems far more often that this music is truly perceived as being without melody, which it certainly is not. You yourself have said that you hear _Le marteau sans maitre_ as incomprehensible noise, which I most assuredly do not. There are plenty of pieces of music that don't appeal to me, but I don't hear them as "mere noise".
> 
> As for the context, I was referring to the fact that specific harmonies or combinations of notes can be perceived, by the same person, as dissonant in one musical context and consonant in another.


if I have used the word noise (and I'm not sure about it) about le Marteau, I've certainly not used it in a literal way.
About the context, well sure, we agree on that. But the discussion was about the same dissonance perceived by different persons. If there's a musical context, obviously it's the same musical context.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> I've always thought that noise and sound are physically different things. With a sound, you have a fixed pitch. With a noise, you can't determine it. There's a a huge difference between this
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sounds of indeterminate pitch have been used in music for a long time. After all, isn't it said that the first instruments were percussion? In Western music, there's the crescendo in the finale of Mahler's Second, the opening of Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces, and then Varese's Ionisation.



norman bates said:


> if I have used the word noise (and I'm not sure about it) about le Marteau, I've certainly not used it in a literal way.


You said (echoing Lehrdahl and others) that perceptively the impression is of random notes and rhythms without any coherence. Not for me. I can recall quite a few sections of the work without even looking at the score.



norman bates said:


> About the context, well sure, we agree on that. But the discussion was about the same dissonance perceived by different persons. If there's a musical context, obviously it's the same musical context.


I'm talking about the same harmony in two different musical situations, two different musical contexts.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

EdwardBast said:


> Dissonance as a musical concept is defined in a completely different way, roughly: anything that sounds like it possesses tension in need of release (metaphorically, it is like stored kinetic energy in physics). Sometimes an interval can sound like it must be resolved to a different one, even though the musically tense interval is acoustically more consonant than the one to which it resolves(!) The most common example, which someone cited above, is the perfect fourth. Imagine the note C sustained in the bass and above it a descent, A-flat to G to F. In the context of a piece in C minor, that F above the C, a perfect fourth, will (usually) need to resolve down to E-flat. Acoustically, the fourth (C-F) is more consonant than the minor third (C-E-flat), but musically, the fourth is a dissonance and the minor third is a consonance.


Ok, now it's more clear.



EdwardBast said:


> Yes, I know. What I am pointing out is that the two concepts are not interchangeable and that they have more or less precise definitions in the field of psychology. Using the example of the two intervals above: If one presented them in isolation to experimental subjects, it is likely the fourth (C-F) will be heard as smoother and more consonant than the minor third (C-E-flat). That is to say, the _sensation_ of the fourth is more consonant. If one presents the same intervals in the context I described above, however, *someone used to hearing western tonal music will perceive the fourth as a dissonance in need of resolution, whereas someone without this background will not*. In this situation, both listeners experience the same _sensations_, but the stylistically competent listener _perceives_ a dissonance the naive listener does not.


I'm not sure about this idea of familiarity as an essential part to understand harmony, I don't remember hearing "frere jacques" or "happy birthday" for the first time as an incomprehensible experience.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Sounds of indeterminate pitch have been used in music for a long time. After all, isn't it said that the first instruments were percussion? In Western music, there's the crescendo in the finale of Mahler's Second, the opening of Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces, and then Varese's Ionisation.


sure, percussive instruments have been used for a long time, but as a reinforcement, a "decoration" (maybe it's not the perfect word, but I hope you get the idea). We could add also that a lot of instruments that produce sounds produce also an amount of noises, but I don't think that a musicologist would discuss the structure of a piece of the eighteen century considering percussions.



Mahlerian said:


> You said (echoing Lehrdahl and others) that perceptively the impression is of random notes and rhythms without any coherence. Not for me. I can recall quite a few sections of the work without even looking at the score.


Ok, but I don't consider it noise for sure!



Mahlerian said:


> I'm talking about the same harmony in two different musical situations, two different musical contexts.


Right, but again, I don't think it was the argument of the discussion, and I have nothing to argue with that, and I think that it's the same for Millionrainbows.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> sure, percussive instruments have been used for a long time, but as a reinforcement, a "decoration" (maybe it's not the perfect word, but I hope you get the idea). We could add also that a lot of instruments that produce sounds produce also an amount of noises, but I don't think that a musicologist would discuss the structure of a piece of the eighteen century considering percussions.


All of the above cited are sections of pieces that are nothing but unpitched percussion. They are not meant as simply decorative, but musical. And furthermore, if percussion instruments came first, then surely they were not always simply decorative? You can point to a good deal of folk music that consists entirely of unpitched percussion.



norman bates said:


> Ok, but I don't consider it noise for sure!


Do you agree with me, then, that it is no more and no less inherently comprehensible than any other piece of music of comparable complexity? From my perspective, the idea that anyone could perceive it as random notes is bizarre, because it sounds very clearly structured.



norman bates said:


> Right, but again, I don't think it was the argument of the discussion, and I have nothing to argue with that, and I think that it's the same for Millionrainbows.


But you _have_ been arguing with it, whenever you claim that a dissonance is always exactly the same no matter what the context.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> I'm not sure about this idea of familiarity as an essential part to understand harmony, I don't remember hearing "frere jacques" or "happy birthday" for the first time as an incomprehensible experience.


As a child, one is very close to a blank slate as regards music, and can take in pretty much anything without the same kinds of discomfort experienced by one who has developed an awareness of how they think things "should go". I listened to The Rite of Spring a lot as a child, and never found myself very disturbed by it as music, so I have no ability to understand how it sounds to someone who finds it difficult.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> All of the above cited are sections of pieces that are nothing but unpitched percussion. They are not meant as simply decorative, but musical.


when I've made the example above I was thinking to put Ionisation instead of the Russolo's piece.



Mahlerian said:


> And furthermore, if percussion instruments came first, then surely they were not always simply decorative? You can point to a good deal of folk music that consists entirely of unpitched percussion.


I don't even know anymore why we're discussing about this.
Anyway considering the classical tradition I guess that before Russolo noise wasn't considered an element with the same importance of sounds.



Mahlerian said:


> Do you agree with me, then, that it is no more and no less inherently comprehensible than any other piece of music of comparable complexity? From my perspective, the idea that anyone could perceive it as random notes is bizarre, because it sounds very clearly structured.


Nope, I still consider it a mess of incomprehensible SOUNDS 
(but that doesn't mean that I'm right about that)



Mahlerian said:


> But you _have_ been arguing with it, whenever you claim that a dissonance is always exactly the same no matter what the context.


the same for different listeners. If you have a context X for the a listener and the same context X with another listener they would perceive (or "sense") the same amount of dissonance or consonance. 
If we change the context, and we have now a context Y two differernt listeners would perceive again the same amount of dissonance or consonance. If now it's not clear, than I don't know what to say.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> As a child, one is very close to a blank slate as regards music, and can take in pretty much anything without the same kinds of discomfort experienced by one who has developed an awareness of how they think things "should go". I listened to The Rite of Spring a lot as a child, and never found myself very disturbed by it as music, so I have no ability to understand how it sounds to someone who finds it difficult.


As an adult, I've loved Gagaku music (or what I think is gagaku) the very first time I've heard it in Maya Deren's Meshes of the afternooon. I still know absolutely nothing about it, but I didn't need to learn it as I've learned to write and read.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> when I've made the example above I was thinking to put Ionisation instead of the Russolo's piece.
> 
> I don't even know anymore why we're discussing about this.
> Anyway considering the classical tradition I guess that before Russolo noise wasn't considered an element with the same importance of sounds.


But that's why I chose examples that have no pitched sounds occurring. Mahler and Berg composed their pieces before Russolo; sure, they're only short sections, but they aren't heard as musically meaningless noise. They still have rhythm, timbre, and (indeterminate) pitch.



norman bates said:


> nope, I still consider it a mess of incomprehensible SOUNDS
> (but that doesn't mean that I'm right about that)


Well, do you think I'm lying when I say that I can follow it, and it doesn't sound random at all? That would in fact make it "comprehensible". Or perhaps you think I'm fooling myself.

In any event, why do you think it sounds different to me? The notes are the same, I can assure you. I don't believe it's merely taste: although my love of the piece certainly derives from my taste, my perception that it is comprehensible and understandable on an aural level does not.



norman bates said:


> the same for different listeners. If you have a context X for the a listener and the same context X with another listener they would perceive (or "sense") the same amount of dissonance or consonance.
> If we change the context, and we have now a context Y two differernt listeners would perceive again the same amount of dissonance or consonance. If now it's not clear, than I don't know what to say.


First, you're wrong, and this is borne out by the above discussion of Boulez, as well as discussions I've had in the past with people who perceive things as being very dissonant to the point of incomprehensibility or whose views on what sounds dissonant change over time with familiarity.

Second, this is not what I was talking about. I was referring to a single listener, and a single, specific chord, say, this one:








Given that single listener, and that exact same harmony, it will be perceived as more or less dissonant in different musical contexts, even though the frequencies and the ratios between them remain identical.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Well, do you think I'm lying when I say that I can follow it, and it doesn't sound random at all? That would in fact make it "comprehensible". Or perhaps you think I'm fooling myself.


Yes, from my point of view or you are fooling yourself, or I don't get it at all. 
Maybe one day I will get it and I will think "well, Mahlerian was right".



Mahlerian said:


> In any event, why do you think it sounds different to me? The notes are the same, I can assure you. I don't believe it's merely taste: although my love of the piece certainly derives from my taste, my perception that it is comprehensible and understandable on an aural level does not.


That's a great question: I don't know. but I think it's a common experience also the fact that sometimes we don't "understand" something at first or even for a long time. A change of perspective maybe. When I've learned to appreciate Webern certainly I didn't thought that I was perceiving it as more consonant or something like that. It was dissonant exactly like when I did not understand it, but it was as I was looking the object from a new point of view. Lateral thinking or something like that.



Mahlerian said:


> First, you're wrong, and this is borne out by the above discussion of Boulez, as well as discussions I've had in the past with people who perceive things as being very dissonant to the point of incomprehensibility or whose views on what sounds dissonant change over time with familiarity.


I guess at this point I can answer only with: no, you're wrong.
But see what I've said few lines above about Webern.



Mahlerian said:


> Second, this is not what I was talking about. I was referring to a single listener, and a single, specific chord, say, this one:
> View attachment 49912
> 
> 
> Given that single listener, and that exact same harmony, it will be perceived as more or less dissonant in different musical contexts, even though the frequencies and the ratios between them remain identical.


yes I got it (again), but still it's not the argument of the previous discussion, and doesn't change anything. Maybe the problem is my bad english, I don't know.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Yes, from my point of view or you are fooling yourself, or I don't get it at all.
> Maybe one day I will get it and I will think "well, Mahlerian was right".


What makes you think that I am lying or fooling myself, rather than any other possible alternative? If you never get it (maybe you will, maybe you won't), will you actually go to the grave believing that it's incomprehensible nonsense? Seems unduly skeptical to me.



norman bates said:


> That's a great question: I don't know. but I think it's a common experience also the fact that sometimes we don't "understand" something at first or even for a long time. A change of perspective maybe. When I've learned to appreciate Webern certainly I didn't thought that I was perceiving it as more consonant or something like that. It was dissonant exactly like when I did not understand it, but it was as I was looking the object from a new point of view. Lateral thinking or something like that.


What would you say to all of the people out there (and they are legion) who believe that Webern is incomprehensible nonsense and no one could possibly understand/like/appreciate it as music and that the people who say they do are either lying or deluded?



norman bates said:


> I guess at this point I can answer only with: no, you're wrong.
> But see what I've said few lines above about Webern.


I remember a discussion with someone on this forum where we talked about the final movement of Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2, and I mentioned that I thought one particular moment in the work was particularly beautiful. The harmony at that point was a major chord in second inversion, reached through a particularly wonderful bit of melody, but the other person, because of the context, perceived it as horribly dissonant. Now, I'm sure that person wouldn't have heard a cadential 6/4 in a Mozart piano concerto as horribly dissonant, so obviously the context is what they were reacting to rather than the harmony.

If they ended up becoming familiar with that context, that moment would probably end up sounding no more dissonant than the similar harmony in Mozart, though still somewhat surprising for the way it is reached.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

norman bates said:


> I'm not sure about this idea of familiarity as an essential part to understand harmony, I don't remember hearing "frere jacques" or "happy birthday" for the first time as an incomprehensible experience.


It's not a matter of comprehensible versus incomprehensible, it is a subtle difference in discernment. Feeling a fourth as a dissonance is going to be natural for someone who knows - not in a formal sense, but intuitively from listening experience -how classical cadences and resolutions work. For someone steeped in pop or jazz, where dissonance treatment is looser, this likely won't be as obvious. The main point is that the perception of musical dissonance, unlike its sensation, is affected by many factors other than purely acoustic ones.


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## Guest (Aug 29, 2014)

Thanks to Edward and Mahlerian for continuing the discussion - I had to be elsewhere, including bed! I don't think there's anything I need to add to what has been said, but norman, if you want me to clear up any of my earlier points, I'm happy to oblige.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

norman bates said:


> I don't know a lot about music theory but I don't get why acoustic dissonance and musical dissonance should be different things. If I play an interval is acoustic and musical.
> 
> I'm probably simply calling perception what you are considering sensation.
> I've made a parallel with colors: the fact that for some reason I don't like the color (probably an incredibly more difficult topic) red has nothing to do with the fact that i perceives it as red, because the human eye (at least for those who don't have tetrachromacy) elaborates a certain frequence in our notion of red.


I guess I'm the only one here besides* norman bates* (thanks for your support and logic) who can unravel this mess.

Now, if you will please consider the following:



> Acoustically, then, the 4th is stronger than the minor third, but it is simultaneously less stable *in a world of triadic harmony* (re: stylistic) because it so obviously is an inversion of the even stronger perfect fifth. Here we see how *perception depends on both physics and culture:* (re: stylistic) the physics forms the basis of the effect, but our familiarity with triadic harmony leads us to expect certain things, too. *(after the fact)*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What the above excerpt is saying is that a fourth is treated as a dissonance, or consonance, depending on how it is perceived in a certain relation to the key note. This is what I've been asserting all along; that tonality broke down not because of "increased tolerance of dissonance," but because there was no strong "key note" reference.

The above example shows how the same interval, a perfect fourth, can be heard differently depending on context. *This doesn't make the actual interval any more dissonant or consonant; it just changes its relation to a key note. It is the keynote that has changed, not the interval.
*
In simple terms, the above example is saying:

*In the key of C,* a fourth consisting of the two notes *G* _*up to*_ *C* is heard as *consonant*, because we always hear a fourth as having the _top note_ as the key note. Play a "Japanese" sounding melody in fourths, and _your ear will always hear the top note as the key guide. _This is based on acoustic factors of partials, and the way our ears hear. Tonality is based on this harmonic phenomena; it's not just "stylistic."

Conversely, *in the key of C,* if we hear a fourth consisting of the two notes *C up to F,* we will hear this interval as *dissonant, *because it wants to resolve down to the third, E.

I've stated this exact thing in my earlier blogs on root movement, which Schoenberg discusses in his text _*Structural Functions of Harmony.*_

Similarly, in the key of C, we hear C up to G as consonant, because it reinforces the key note. We always hear a fifth as having the root on bottom. Schoenberg calls this type of root movement ( a fifth up, identical to a fourth down) a *superstrong* progression, because C up to G (fifth) or C down to G(fourth) both reinforce C, the key note; *not* because one is more dissonant than the other.

*So we see from this, that "stylistic" norms are actually based on acoustic phenomena in the end, which is the way partials of fundamental pitches are formed and heard by our human ears.*


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Millionrainbows, your argument is fallacious and this is easily demonstrated. Your basis for consonance in the examples below is the reinforcing of the tonic pitch. You state: "Similarly, in the key of C, we hear C up to G as consonant, because it reinforces the key note." The word similarly in this sentence refers back to your previous example of a fourth, from C to F, resolving to a third, from C to E, because the E, "similarly" to the G, reinforces the tonic pitch (since it is the 5th partial in the harmonic series). If your theory is correct, that reinforcing the tonic pitch is the crucial factor, then this resolution of the F would work if it fell to E natural, which reinforces the tonic pitch, but not if it fell to E-flat, which is in strong conflict with the tonic pitch and its partials. Obviously, the resolution of the fourth works just as well for E and E-flat. This proves clearly and succinctly that your theory is wrong. It could only be right in a world where minor chords don't exist, which is to say, not in this world.

From this it follows that your more general point, that stylistic norms depend fundamentally and directly on acoustic phenomena, is equally dubious. The actual criterion for the resolution of the fourth, as above, is simple and it is based on stylistic norms: By the musical (as opposed to the acoustic) definitions of consonance and dissonance, chord tones are consonances, non-chord tones are dissonances. This is true whether or not the chord tones reinforce the root of the chord or the key note.



millionrainbows said:


> I guess I'm the only one here besides* norman bates* (thanks for your support and logic) who can unravel this mess.
> 
> Now, if you will please consider the following:
> 
> ...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> If your theory is correct, that reinforcing the tonic pitch is the crucial factor, then this resolution of the F would work if it fell to E natural, which reinforces the tonic pitch, but not if it fell to E-flat, which is in strong conflict with the tonic pitch and its partials.


The example given earlier which discusses the treatment of the perfect fourth as a dissonance is based on the relation to the key area, C, and the E-Eb third is really secondary. What reinforces a key area is the root (keynote) and the fifth. The example clearly states that a fourth is an "upside down fifth." You seem to have missed the point.



EdwardBast said:


> Obviously, the resolution of the fourth works just as well for E and E-flat.


Of course it does; the key has already been established as C, and it's really irrelevant if this is C major or minor. You need to concentrate on the fourth, and why it is considered dissonant and needs to resolve to a third.



EdwardBast said:


> This proves clearly and succinctly that your theory is wrong.


No, it doesn't.



EdwardBast said:


> It could only be right in a world where minor chords don't exist, which is to say, not in this world.


That statement is empty rhetoric, and has nothing to do with the ideas presented here. This concerns the fourth, and why it is dissonant. The resolution is secondary.



EdwardBast said:


> From this it follows that your more general point, that stylistic norms depend fundamentally and directly on acoustic phenomena, is equally dubious.


No, I don't think so; it's based on the perception of the key note, and that perception is also based on a harmonic model, of how we hear partials, which the quoted example also acknowledges. The fifth and fourth are inversions of each other, and both can either reinforce the key, or not. This is discussed in Schoenberg's textbook *Structural functions of Harmony.*

**Plus, you haven't addressed the issue of the fourth in the bass as *not* being dissonant, because it reinforces the key note as a functioning fifth (G up to C is a fourth, but G is the V function in the key of C.)



EdwardBast said:


> The actual criterion for the resolution of the fourth, as above, is simple and it is based on stylistic norms: By the musical (as opposed to the acoustic) definitions of consonance and dissonance, chord tones are consonances, non-chord tones are dissonances. This is true whether or not the chord tones reinforce the root of the chord or the key note.


A minor third is the ratio 5:6, a major third is 4:5. Both of these thirds are more consonant than any other non-chord intervals:

1. minor seventh (C-Bb) 9:16
2. major seventh (C-B) 8:15
3. major second (C-D) 8:9
4. minor sixth (C-Ab) 5:8
*5. minor third (C-Eb) 5:6*
*6. major third (C-E) 4:5*
7. major sixth (C-A) 3:5
8. perfect fourth (C-F) 3:4
*9. perfect fifth (C-G) 2:3*
10. octave (C-C') 1:2
*11. unison (C-C) 1:1
*
From this, I don't see what you mean by saying "E-flat...is in strong conflict with the tonic pitch and its partials." In C minor, it's the third of the chord, and it is less dissonant than the fourth, or any other pitch not in the chord. So what's the problem?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

So that's about all there is to say on the subject. Tonality broke down not because of perceived dissonance, or sylistic conventions (which are based on perception of a keynote anyway), but because there was gradually no keynote to refer to. It became too ambiguous, or too fast-changing. Tonality is based on a harmonic model, which is the perception of one note and its harmonics, the way our ears hear it. Even the stylistic conventions of tonality, such as the treatment of the fourth as a dissonance, as discussed above, are based on the perception of reinforcing a key note.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Cheyenne said:


> It is one of my missions in life to fully comprehend a post by millionrainbows on music theory.


For sure, it is an alternative theoretical universe of music theory... 
and instead of being saddle-shaped it is shaped like a Klein bottle.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

"Why did tonality break down?"

_Why oh why did the internal combustion engine and automobiles come along to outstrip the use of the horse and buggy?_

Really, though, within the seeds of modality were its destruction, ditto tonality, strict serialism, and about every other music "theory" practice you care to name... i.e its beginning is its end.


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## Guest (Aug 30, 2014)

Dear lord,

Thank you for giving me very little knowledge of music so that I might enjoy listening to so much of it.

Amen.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

_ Originally Posted by *Cheyenne* 
_
_It is one of my missions in life to fully comprehend a post by millionrainbows on music theory._



PetrB said:


> For sure, it is an alternative theoretical universe of music theory...
> and instead of being saddle-shaped it is shaped like a Klein bottle.


That's refreshing, Cheyenne; at least you admit to things that are over your head, unlike those who do not understand the posted example link, which explained a suspension. I suggest The Harvard Dictionary of Music, under "consonance and dissonance."

Our ears hear a fourth with the top note as being key; that's why, in the example, when the fourth occurs in the key of C as a C-F, this degrades the key, because we hear the top note F as more powerful.

Conversely, the exception to the practice is when the fourth is in the bass, as in G up to C; again, we hear the top note as more powerful, and since this top note is c, it reinforces the key of C.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> "Why did tonality break down?"


The premise of this thread was to respond to *someguy's* assertion in another thread that tonality's demise was due to "dissonance becoming more tolerable to modern ears," which is not the case. Consonance and dissonance are unchanging constants.

Tonality's reason for being is to reinforce a key note.

A "perfect" fourth is designated as "perfect" because it is a consonant interval.

Referring to the link, the fourth is treated as a dissonance in need of resolving, not because it sounds "more dissonant" in the context, but because it does not reinforce the key area.

The F in this case does not reinforce the key of C because it draws the ear to F as keynote, with C being degraded from tonic to the fifth of a possible F chord; not because it "sounds more dissonant."



PetrB said:


> Really, though, within the seeds of modality were its destruction, ditto tonality, strict serialism, and about every other music "theory" practice you care to name... i.e its beginning is its end.


I've talked before about tonality containing the elements which led to its demise, and this is largely due to the number "12" and Pythagoras basing our 12-note scale on fifths.

I don't see what you are referring to, specifically, in your reference to serialism or modality. How do these contain elements which contradict their internal structural premises? I don't see it.

Serialism avoids this dilemma by fully embracing the 12-note scale, and using all of its symmetries and characteristics. There is no inherent conflict in serialism with the 12-note division of the octave, because serialism has no need to reference a key note, or model itself after a harmonic model, as tonality tried to do.

Tonality was supposed to be based on a harmonic model, of the fifth, but in doing this, the third was compromised, thus the mean-tone attempts to salvage the third.

Tonality really "succumbed" to the 12-note elements which serialism was good at, and which it was so inept in handling. The equal tempering of the 12-notes was the final compromise, turning tonality into a self-serving modulatory system which favored root movement over sensual factors. In this regard, tonality represents the victory of the cerebral over the sensual, and is thus as arbitrary as serialism, except in the fact that it is able to make reference to historical precedent.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

While I did have some musical training as a little kid, I really got into classical in my teens. The only 'classical' I'd heard in its entirety was Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (Which by the way didn't encourage me at all, specially after the millionth time they made me watch the dreaded Disney version, and I couldn't relate it the the bits of 'classical' pieces I'd heard). 

Debussy sounded very weird, Where is the melody in Symphonie fantastique??, Stravisnky was a pretty melody followed by a bunch of incoherent noises until the pretty melody came back, the flute part in Beethoven's 6th was absolutely unpredictable.... 

A lot of listenings afterwards (and I have to admit, after few Young People's Concerts too) all that changed. Oh!, and understanding what 'tonality' meant took me quite a while and even today I only half-believe its premises.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

gog said:


> Dear lord,
> 
> Thank you for giving me very little knowledge of music so that I might enjoy listening to so much of it.
> 
> Amen.





Richannes Wrahms said:


> ...and understanding what 'tonality' meant took me quite a while and even today I only half-believe its premises.


Your ears hear the same sorts of things everyone else hears, and that is the basis for any theories which might follow from that initial response.

The ear hears in a certain way, because of the nature of sound and its harmonics. This is the intuitive truth that tonality is based on.

The problems arise when people begin using knowledge as an inflexible collection of rules, such as "all non-chord tones must resolve," without first having an innate grasp of sound, and how the ear is drawn to a single tone as its center.

All understanding of music can be found in the comprehension of a single note.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> The premise of this thread was to respond to *someguy's* assertion in another thread that tonality's demise was due to "dissonance becoming more tolerable to modern ears," which is not the case. Consonance and dissonance are unchanging constants.


Let me preface this by saying that I'm a musical layman. I merely have a couple questions. I'm sincerely curious about this.

From my non-technical viewpoint, why couldn't dissonance become more tolerable to modern ears? I get that you're saying dissonance is dissonance and nothing will _technically _ or _mathematically _change that, but we as humans, for so many things are able to change our perception of said things. Why doesn't that apply to music? Once again, let me reiterate, I understand that dissonance is what it is _technically_, but why are you applying math and literalness to human perception?

The Universe can be described in mathematical terms, in fact, it is. Yet in art, which is what music is, we can portray the Universe in different new ways. We can take seemingly "harsh" techniques (like dissonance in music) and make them part of a new modern language of music/art. The harsh dissonance over time will become more tolerable. I mean, pointillism, cubism, and other "bizarre/harsh" techniques have become part of the standard language of art. It's no longer harsh to our modern eyes but imagine if one of Picasso's most "bizarre" paintings was transported back in time to the Renaissance, people would have gasped! How harsh, how ugly, how intolerable! But it isn't harsh to our modern eyes, why is that?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

DiesIraeVIX said:


> We, as humans, for so many things are able to change our perception of said things. Why doesn't that apply to music? Once again, let me reiterate, I understand that dissonance is what it is _technically_, but why are you applying math and literalness to human perception?


He is doing so because he, like others in this thread, is not making the essential distinction between sensation and perception. What he is talking about is actually sensation. The generalizations he makes are nonsense when applied to human perception. See post #103 for more on this topic.


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