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Posted By: batmanxxxignorant question, but bear with me - 11/18/05 11:51 PM
ok, this is an ignorant question, but then again, i've only been playing piano for a year or so
well anyway, what exactly is..the point of playing dissonant music??? seriously, dissonant literally means "bad sounding," and oh boy, is it true. then why compose it? and why play it?
Posted By: KreislerRe: ignorant question, but bear with me - 11/19/05 12:18 AM
All music has some dissonance in it. From Beethoven to Brickman, just about everybody uses some degree of dissonance in their music.
Of course, some composers use more than others. And they use it in different ways. A "dissonant" piece may be so because it's trying to express some painful or difficult emotional state. Beethoven used dissonance to create tension that is released later on, often giving the work a heroic or resolute feel.
Also, think about how you would apply the same question to other media. Why have an unsavory character in a book? Why make a movie about war? Why set a play in a concentration camp? Why view a photo essay about starving children in National Geographic?
In short, dissonance is a part of life, and art is about life.
Posted By: 8udeRe: ignorant question, but bear with me - 11/19/05 12:36 AM
I think you might be a bit off on your definition of dissonant. Dissonance does not mean bad-sounding. It simply means that it deals with intervals that are construed as more "harsh" sounding than the consonant intervals (i.e. 3rds, 5ths, and octaves).
You ask why someone would compose it? Because if the world consisted of only "consonant" music, how boring would that be? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy consonant music just fine, but I want something different too.
What if Beethoven decided to just continue writing music exactly in the same style as Mozart? The world would be poorer for it. What if Liszt decided that the Hungarian folk songs he based his work on were too dissonant sounding, so he played it safe and only wrote consonant music? The list goes on and on. Composers need to push boundaries and deliver something new, otherwise their work will be forgotten as being trivial or looked at as a knockoff of a previous composer. The world has had centuries and centuries of consonant music - it's only fair that there be some dissonance to counter-balance it.
If you don't like dissonant music, then I won't argue with you - it's your choice. But personally, I would go batty if I was limited to only listening to consonant music. There is way too much great music out there to limit yourself only to one small piece of it. Open your mind and try some of it - it's not all that bad.
Posted By: pianomadRe: ignorant question, but bear with me - 11/19/05 12:42 AM
To add to the discussion, I can find plenty of consonant music that is "bad sounding". I won't mention any names, lest this thread devolve into a shouting match where the moderators need to intervene.
But, you all know which artists/composers/bands I'm talking about, right?
Posted By: thoughtfulRe: ignorant question, but bear with me - 11/19/05 01:11 AM
By ways of contrast, dissoance makes consonance sounds good. EVERY first-rated composer that I can think of used a fair amount of dissoance in their music, including Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, and the list goes on and on.
Posted By: 8udeRe: ignorant question, but bear with me - 11/19/05 01:17 AM
Quote
Originally posted by pianomad: But, you all know which artists/composers/bands I'm talking about, right?
To add to the discussion, I can find plenty of consonant music that is "bad sounding". I won't mention any names, lest this thread devolve into a shouting match where the moderators need to intervene.
Oh I can think of plenty myself as well. No names, though...
I think good and bad music transcends such narrow limits as consonance and dissonance. There are plenty of great pieces that are consonant - though there are lots of ones I consider awful as well. Same with dissonance - there are some incredible masterpieces that are dissonant, and there's a lot of junk as well.
Posted By: George KRe: ignorant question, but bear with me - 11/19/05 04:12 AM
One of the best (or at least one of the most interesting) descriptions I ever heard for "dissonance" is a chord (or sound) that wants to go somewhere - it wants to be resolved to a consonant chord.
Think of tonic, dominant, subdominant......you want to go back to the tonic - the subdominant is dissonant.
Does this make sense to anyone?
George
Posted By: pianomadRe: ignorant question, but bear with me - 11/19/05 05:29 AM
Quote
Originally posted by George K:
One of the best (or at least one of the most interesting) descriptions I ever heard for "dissonance" is a chord (or sound) that wants to go somewhere - it wants to be resolved to a consonant chord.
This is how most people are surrounded by dissonance without realizing it, because it's absolutely essential in standard Western music for dissonance and consonance to be entwined; people are conditioned to hear that as normal.
I'd be interested to hear from an ethnomusicological slant. How do dissonance and consonance figure in other world musics? I had a blast recently setting my keyboard to an Arabic tuning and playing intervals that are wildly foreign to Western ears. And yet to Middle Eastern people, these sounds would not strike them as unusual.
Posted By: BBBworshipRe: ignorant question, but bear with me - 11/19/05 06:49 AM
the more dissonant, the better. btw in pure atonal music is there a such thing as dissonance?
Posted By: bach enthusiastRe: ignorant question, but bear with me - 11/19/05 07:03 AM
Some peole hate lots of it at once and others love it. I would be in the second camp. chopin's 10/3 etude with all that dissonance at once is cool as heck. After the dim.7th runs there's 4 full bars of nothing but tritones! It's now one of my favorite pages in chopin since I've been learning to play it recently. It's unique cause it's just so un chopin. Anyway, I guess I could say that I love the sound of dissonace. It adds so much flavor and variety. My other favorite instance of dissonance is the middle of scriabin's impromptu no.1 of opus 10. One of my favorite pieces of music mainly bacause of the big dissonant climax. kinda random thoughts there but oh well. Disonance Rules.
Posted By: kcoul058Re: ignorant question, but bear with me - 11/19/05 09:19 AM
I believe all intervals can be used consonantly given the right context so IMO the matter is construed a little when argued in terms of sonic interval. It is more a matter of how a composer applies a series/set of pitches/rhythms/textures to a context that gives it a certain degree of dissonance or not. When dissonance is used well, the effect is ever the more powerful than purely consonant music could ever be. However, when it is used frivolously or in excess, it matters not what the composer is trying to express, if the listener is discomforted or upset when listening to it, their receptive centers will close and the message will never really be transmitted (connoiseurs aside). The key here is to integrate dissonance in such a way that it has quite the opposite effect, it grabs the attention of the listener and puts them in a position where they will inevitably wide open to take in whatever musical message the composer intends on expressing.
And so, to finally take a side, I believe that many of the 20th century composers lost their sense of this reality in some or many (and in some cases, pretty well all) of their works, and in so doing, closed themselves off from the public. Others were able however to find innovative and unprecented means of expressing new messages that had never existed in music before theirs, and in so doing became true artistic pioneers of their time.
It's just too bad that the academic/theory/treatise/critic side of it all never supported what was happening in such a way to keep people in the know of what works were truly meritable and which were full of the excess I spoke of earlier, and had little or no merit as a result. This is what seems to have delineated the 20th century classical scene from the widespread public, perhaps particularly in North America. Many of us seems to chose to remained focused on the past towards the music we love most rather than rallying somehow to ensure a new music period is created where the music that surrounds us is enjoyed by the majority once more, or at least, appreciated.
Just IMHO of course.
