# Dissonances in tonal music



## Jord

Since i've been studying Fux's study of counterpoint it's pretty much driven me mad when writing tonal music because i'm trying my hardest not to have 2nds 4ths and 7ths, i have a few exceptions here and there, what is your views on writing tonal music and dissonances?


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## StevenOBrien

If it sounds good, keep it. If not, get rid of it.


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## Praeludium

Depends what you're seeking for. I think it's important to understand that in tonal music, dissonance has a direct emotional impact (whether it's an dissonant interval or a strange modulation, or even a strange rhythm), so you have to be cautious about when you'll use them and what kind of dissonance you want. You wouldn't want to give all you've got in the first few measures.
It's something I have difficulties to do in my harmony "dans le style de" exercises.


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## PetrB

Theoretic rules are useful for showing you how music works. The kind of study you've been making tells you how within severely limited parameters, one style from one era 'worked.'

No decent music can be written by simply following a bunch of rules, though. The combined effort of your intellect, both rational and intuitive, and your ear, is what make possible the better and more interesting music.

Get ready to mine your own mind, then, and see if that dissonance not only 'sounds good' but makes a kind of musical sense where it is placed.

The only 'consonant' music is a unison drone


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Jord said:


> it's pretty much driven me mad when writing tonal music


well don't.


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## etkearne

I don't bother with following that unless I am specifically trying to resolve some serious edge-of-tonality sections of music. I like compose in a sort of neo-classical style where I use the proper structures and "over-used" rhythmic melodic cells, but over an extremely unstable harmonic structure on the edge of tonality. I suppose a good analogy would be Ravel's later works like Le Tombeau de Couperin where he uses really "stuffy" forms and almost cheesy rhythmic-melodic motifs over a really adventurous harmonic structure.

So it all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Most contemporary composers like to draw from many styles, so I would not think that many contemporary listeners would gasp at a dissonant voice-lead once in awhile.


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## millionrainbows

You might try reading Walter Piston's counterpoint book. That Fux stuff is pretty archaic.

Anyway, counterpoint is a pedagogical tool, so it's "artificial" to a degree. The only thing to really worry about is parallel 4ths and 5ths. If counterpoint is impeding you, leave it alone and go back to your first-year harmony text. Also, look into some advanced 20th century harmony texts & find one you like, just to remind you that rules _can_ be broken.


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## wogandmush

Fuxian counterpoint does not proscribe dissonance but rather teaches the basic handling procedures of it. I strongly recommend you pursue your study of counterpoint, no matter what your favored musical style.


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## Jord

millionrainbows said:


> That Fux stuff is pretty archaic.


That's what i like about it though, i haven't even finished it it's just made me more paranoid about the actual score than the music which reading all these comments i'm starting to listen to the music instead


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## drpraetorus

In common practice harmony, it not that you syhouldn't have 2nds, 4ths, or 7ths. It's how you get into and out of them. Both the approach and the resolution have to be done correctly. The voice leading needs to be just right. I would suggest an annalysis of Bachs chorals. He is very instructive on how to handle these tones and intervals.


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## Praeludium

drpraetorus said:


> In common practice harmony, it not that you syhouldn't have 2nds, 4ths, or 7ths. It's how you get into and out of them. Both the approach and the resolution have to be done correctly. The voice leading needs to be just right. I would suggest an annalysis of Bachs chorals. He is very instructive on how to handle these tones and intervals.


On the other hand there are some very strange things happenings in Bach chorals ! Bach actually do things a counterpoint teacher would consider as incorrect ( poor Bach, I guess that if _the teacher_ says it, he'll have to rewrite his works q: ). Parallel fifths, dissonances leading to other dissonance, etc.


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## wogandmush

Indeed Fux's manual (upon which most counterpoint classes are based) is based on an idiom from long before Bach's time. However the fundamentals of dissonance treatment taught, being based on the mathematical relationships between notes, still carry over into Bach's idiom. Bach's contrapuntal language is in no way less disciplined than that of 16th century composers'; rather his vocabulary is greatly expanded. 

Also, if you could point to an example of parallel Fifths in Bach's music I'd be curious to see it.

And on dissonances leading to other dissonances: examples of this can be found even in Fuxian counterpoint such as the Nota Cambiata figure taught in Third Species.


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## wogandmush

I might add that if a 16th century composer did write some of the figures of which Bach uses they would indeed sound incorrect. The two styles differ in many ways; not just in the style of counterpoint, but in rhythmic and formal procedures (among other things). Both the 16th century contrapuntal masters, and Bach and his contemporaries are said to represent the culmination or apex of their respective eras (hence 'High Renaissance' and 'High Baroque') because they both achieved a perfect and coherent coordination of the musical tools of their day. Hence to introduce some foreign element from another era inherently causes an unbalance.


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## Jord

drpraetorus said:


> I would suggest an annalysis of Bachs chorals. He is very instructive on how to handle these tones and intervals.


Thanks i'll have a look when i get round to it


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## PetrB

In your garden, a weed is not ' what,' but most importantly 'where.'

By all means keep working in the counterpoint ala Fux, and there puzzle out how to make it work within "the rules" while knowing they are not exactly 'rules' and that they only apply to that one period style.

The principles behind those rules can be taken anywhere: once known -- and here follows a bust up of a very badly stated cliche -- you don't 'break rules' but instead you have learned from other principles how to make up your own M.O. principles for your own piece... because all the music you have yet to write is not covered in those theory treatises or textbooks.

Now... Stay with the Fux, _("May the Fux be with you.")_ That is no reason to not turn around and write another way during the period you are studying Fux. Your discomfort with 'switching mental gears' is temporary, and to switch it up is a good 'break' as well as a stretching exercise.

It might be a bit dangerous or irresponsible of me to state this well-known 'secret.' Once you are out of academia (self or signed up as student) you really have to unlearn about half of what you learned there, that half is the 'academic and proper' approach. The 'proper academic' approach never helped write a good or interesting piece, ever (while it was more than valid and necessary when you were in academia). What you are left with is a replete tool box with which to make your own constructs and solve the problem (the piece) you've set up.

Confused? Write. Write some more. Write the Fux exercises by the book and alternate that with writing as freely as you wish.


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## Praeludium

wogandmush said:


> [...]
> 
> Also, if you could point to an example of parallel Fifths in Bach's music I'd be curious to see it.
> 
> [...]


"Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ", BWV 253
At the end of the third period, the soprano voice does "A -> B" and the alto voice "Dsharp -> E". And this is just the first choral of my book which includes the 388 Bach chorals 

And in the same Choral there's, in a cadence, a leading tone in the tenor which isn't resolved (neither in the tenor voice nor in the alto voice). It goes like that : E G# D B -> A E C# A
I guess you'd be told it's wrong in an harmony assignment in the Bach choral style.


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## wogandmush

Praeludium said:


> "Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ", BWV 253
> At the end of the third period, the soprano voice does "A -> B" and the alto voice "Dsharp -> E". And this is just the first choral of my book which includes the 388 Bach chorals


Those aren't parallel Fifths, but rather hidden Fifths arising from a Perfect Fifth approached in similar motion (D#-A is a diminished Fifth). Even Fux allows for these in three or more voices as they are a necessary evil to achieve smooth lines. Even without looking at the score (though I am looking at the score) I could tell you with some certainty that one or more of the other voices are moving in descent, as this is one way of reducing the severity of this kind of motion.



Praeludium said:


> And in the same Choral there's, in a cadence, a leading tone in the tenor which isn't resolved (neither in the tenor voice nor in the alto voice). It goes like that : E G# D B -> A E C# A
> I guess you'd be told it's wrong in an harmony assignment in the Bach choral style.


Here Bach resolves the G# of the tenor in the soprano and bring the tenor down to an E to flesh out the final chord. This is a well recognized practice at cadences, mentioned in most if not all textbooks, and if a harmony teacher should mark it wrong he/she doesn't know their stuff.


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## Praeludium

wogandmush said:


> Those aren't parallel Fifths, but rather hidden Fifths arising from a Perfect Fifth approached in similar motion (D#-A is a diminished Fifth). Even Fux allows for these in three or more voices as they are a necessary evil to achieve smooth lines. Even without looking at the score (though I am looking at the score) I could tell you with some certainty that one or more of the other voices are moving in descent, as this is one way of reducing the severity of this kind of motion.
> 
> Here Bach resolves the G# of the tenor in the soprano and bring the tenor down to an E to flesh out the final chord. This is a well recognized practice at cadences, mentioned in most if not all textbooks, and if a harmony teacher should mark it wrong he/she doesn't know their stuff.


I stand corrected about the cadence - I had understood that it was done in order to have the fifth directly above the fundamental of the chord but I thought it was "bad harmony" in theory. I find it strange that you say it is resolved in the soprano voice, that said. It's a minor ninth above, after all, and this is quite different from when a leading tone is resolved with a descending major seventh (which sounds like octaviation).

But those fifth, when I first played/analyzed the choral, struck me as immediatly audible. My experience with species counterpoint was that even a fourth could be considered a dissonance and something to avoid absolutely, let alone a diminished fifth going in parallel motion to a perfect fifth.
I made something similar (by inavertance. It was in contrary movement, etc.) in a choral last year at an exam and was told it was wrong.
Now, I'm quite biased about specie counterpoint (because when I had to practice it it struck me as particularly deconnected of any musical reality, it sounded more like an assemblage of strange rules) so I migth well be researching for any example which can show how strange it is.
I am also suspicious about textbook harmony : my harmony teacher of this year told me some things Bach did were "awful" (false relations between notes, etc.). I was somewhat shocked. And he's competent : he's completing a master at Paris superior conservatory. On the top of that, teachers seem to contradict each other : my analysis teacher told me that an augmented sixth is an augmented sixth, period, and my harmony teacher told me that they were called French, German and Italian sixths ^^' Both have studied at prestigious top rate conservatories.


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## wogandmush

Praeludium said:


> I find it strange that you say it is resolved in the soprano voice, that said. It's a minor ninth above, after all, and this is quite different from when a leading tone is resolved with a descending major seventh (which sounds like octaviation).


Ah right you are! The score I was looking at is in a very strange style and has the tenor part written an octave above where it sounds (I thought the voice-crossing between the tenor and alto seemed strange!). Thus I was indeed wrong in saying it resolves in the soprano. Nonetheless, the important thing is that it moves to the Fifth to flesh out the chord (cadences only!).



Praeludium said:


> But those fifth, when I first played/analyzed the choral, struck me as immediatly audible. My experience with species counterpoint was that even a fourth could be considered a dissonance and something to avoid absolutely, let alone a diminished fifth going in parallel motion to a perfect fifth.
> I made something similar (by inavertance. It was in contrary movement, etc.) in a choral last year at an exam and was told it was wrong.


If you isolate the two top voices where those Fifths occur they will sound absolutely wrong (as they should). However, when a diminished Fifth, an augmented Fourth or a perfect Fourth are played above a third voice a Third below (i.e. a first inversion triad), they function (almost) like an imperfect consonance (Fux agrees). Thus, the movement between the two upper voices are from an imperfect consonance to a perfect consonance in similar motion. Again this is unacceptable between two voices, but even Fux allows it in three-part exercises.

I'm not quite sure from your description of what you did in you exam, so I can't say whether you or your teacher were wrong.



Praeludium said:


> Now, I'm quite biased about specie counterpoint (because when I had to practice it it struck me as particularly deconnected of any musical reality, it sounded more like an assemblage of strange rules) so I migth well be researching for any example which can show how strange it is.


It is true that species counterpoint can hardly be called music. However, the rules which they are designed to teach, far from being arbitrary, relate directly to how notes sound together, as well as how complex the ratios of their frequencies were. While they seem disconnected from our musical reality, even that of centuries ago, the are, in large, the rules which were recognized and largely adhered to by composers of the mid to high renaissance. The twentieth century composer Paul Hindemith has a series of books called _the Craft of Musical Composition_ in which he uses contemporary technology to systematically rank the intervals, both harmonic and melodic, by their respective level of dissonance (based on the ratio of their frequencies). Not surprisingly, the ranking is analogous to that which is taught in species counterpoint.



Praeludium said:


> I am also suspicious about textbook harmony : my harmony teacher of this year told me some things Bach did were "awful" (false relations between notes, etc.). I was somewhat shocked. And he's competent : he's completing a master at Paris superior conservatory. On the top of that, teachers seem to contradict each other : my analysis teacher told me that an augmented sixth is an augmented sixth, period, and my harmony teacher told me that they were called French, German and Italian sixths ^^' Both have studied at prestigious top rate conservatories.


Sometimes teachers like to make statements like that to get students' attention. If he really finds Bach's music awful then he must have a very limited taste in music. Of course in simpler harmony exercises false relations which are mishandled are most undesirable, and your teacher is absolutely correct to dissuade beginner students from using them at the start. In practice they can be used for great dramatic effect when handled correctly and in appropriate context.

Check out the fugue from this preludium by Buxtehude (around 1:04).






The B natural of the countersubject creates a false relation with the B flat which was played in the subject. The effect here is decidedly bad ***, but would be entirely inappropriate in, say, a lullaby.

In the climax to the first movement of his String Quartet in C major, Op. 64 No. 1 Haydn even uses parallel Fifths, one of the biggest naughties of them all. Because Haydn knows the rules he can deliberately break them with striking effect. By the way he was the first great composer to study Fux's manual. He clearly thought highly of the manual and introduced Beethoven to it when the younger composer studied with him

The interval of an augmented Sixth generally occurs in three different chords, the Italian 6th, French 6th and German 6th. For a description of the chords and the difference between them, check out Harmony and Voice Leading by Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter, a harmony book I can recommend.


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## Praeludium

Thanks for taking the time to answer. Interesting answer indeed.

Even though I hated species counterpoint, I've read, for instance, an interview with Dutilleux where he said that it was important. Ligeti teached counterpoint at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest when he was young, if I'm right. So I cannot help but thinking it must be somewhat useful. But there are probably some great composers who never did species counterpoint ever. A possible analogy could be the problem of technical "finger" exercices for an instrumentalist. Some great musicians say they're useful. Some say it's useless. What should we think ?  I've just decided I should first study Bach pedagogical works. If someday I want/absolutely have to study species counterpoint properly and extensively, I'll do it. Not now q:

My analyse teacher told me that even though the species counterpoint was an important pedagogical tool decades and centuries ago, it has little relevance today due to the fact that we have now easily access to an huge repertoire (both audio and sheet) to study, including polyphonic music. We can now study this directly in the repertoire. 
Do you relate to this ? 

About the augmented sixths, I already understood the differences and how they can be used (albeit probably not all the cases where you can use them), with their enharmonical properties. What I was saying is that my analysis teacher just told me that an augmented sixth was augmented sixth, period, and that he found it strange that they were given those names (particularly since the French sixth is very Brahmsian, and Brahms wasn't exactly the typical french composer) ^^


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## BurningDesire

The attitude against parrallel 5ths I find to be silly. They sound great X3


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## Renaissance

Well, they sound good, but they form rather homophonic music...I guess it was their obsession with polyphony after all...they didn't want to sound like Perotin with parallel fifths.


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## Igneous01

The funny thing about parallel 5ths/4ths - There is really only 1 piece that I know well that really makes use of them everywhere and in such a way as saying 'look at me, im breaking your precious rules!' - Holst's Mars the bringer of war. I still havnt found any other pieces that show them off bare naked like in that work. And they dont sound homophonic in it either (at least imo)


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## BurningDesire

Igneous01 said:


> The funny thing about parallel 5ths/4ths - There is really only 1 piece that I know well that really makes use of them everywhere and in such a way as saying 'look at me, im breaking your precious rules!' - Holst's Mars the bringer of war. I still havnt found any other pieces that show them off bare naked like in that work. And they dont sound homophonic in it either (at least imo)


Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Satie's Nocturnes, Debussy's La Mer and many others of his pieces... o3o


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