Consonance and Dissonance

Consonance and dissonance - Wikipedia
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonance_and_dissonance
Consonance and dissonance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In music, consonance and dissonance form

a structural dichotomy in which the terms
define each other by mutual exclusion: a
consonance is what is not dissonant, and
reciprocally. However, a finer consideration
The minor second, a
The perfect octave, a
shows that the distinction forms a gradation,
consonant interval Play dissonance Play
from the most consonant to the most
dissonant. Consonance is associated with
sweetness, pleasantness and acceptability and dissonance with harshness, unpleasantness, or
unacceptability. As Hindemith stressed, "The two concepts have never been completely explained,
and for a thousand years the definitions have varied" (Hindemith 1942, p. 85).
The opposition can be made in different contexts:
In acoustics or psychophysiology, the distinction may be objective. In modern times, it
usually is based on the perception of harmonic partials of the sounds considered, to such an
extent that the distinction really holds only in the case of harmonic sounds (i.e. sounds with
harmonic partials).
In music, even if the opposition often is founded on the preceding, objective distinction, it
more often is subjective, conventional, cultural, and style- and/or period-dependent.
Dissonance can then be defined as a combination of sounds that does not belong to the style
under consideration; in recent music, what is considered stylistically dissonant may even
correspond to what is said to be consonant in the context of acoustics (e.g. a major triad in
20th century atonal music). A major second (e.g. the notes C and D played simultaneously)
would be considered dissonant if it occurred in a J.S. Bach prelude from the 1700s; however,
the same interval may sound consonant in the context of a Claude Debussy piece from the
early 1900s or an atonal contemporary piece.
In both cases, the distinction mainly concerns simultaneous sounds; if successive sounds are
considered, their consonance or dissonance depends on the memorial retention of the first sound
while the second sound (or pitch) is heard. For this reason, consonance and dissonance have been
considered particularly in the case of Western polyphonic music, and the present article is
concerned mainly with this case. Most historical definitions of consonance and dissonance since
about the 16th century have stressed their pleasant/unpleasant, or agreeable/disagreeable character.
This may be justifiable in a psychophysiological context, but much less in a musical context
properly speaking: dissonances often play a decisive role in making music pleasant, even in a
generally consonant context which is one of the reasons why the musical definition of
consonance/dissonance cannot match the psychophysiologic definition. In addition, the oppositions
pleasant/unpleasant or agreeable/disagreeable evidence a confusion between the concepts of
'dissonance' and of 'noise'. (See also Noise in music, Noise music and Noise (acoustic).)
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While consonance and dissonance exist only between sounds and therefore necessarily describe
intervals (or chords), such as the perfect intervals, which are often viewed as consonant (e.g., the
unison and octave), Occidental music theory often considers that, in a dissonant chord, one of the
tones alone is in itself deemed to be the dissonance: it is this tone in particular that needs
"resolution" through a specific voice leading procedure. For example, in the key of C Major, if F is
produced as part of the dominant seventh chord (G7, which consists of the pitches G, B, D and F), it
is deemed to be "dissonant" and it normally resolves to E during a cadence, with the G7 chord
changing to a C Major chord.
Contents
1 Consonance
2 Dissonance
2.1 Musical style
2.2 In traditional music
3 In history of Western music
3.1 Antiquity and Middle-Ages
3.2 Renaissance
3.3 Common practice period
3.4 Neo-classic harmonic consonance theory
4 Instruments producing non-harmonic overtone series
5 Physiological basis
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links
Consonance
Consonances may include:
Perfect consonances:
unisons and octaves
perfect fourths and perfect fifths
Imperfect consonances:
major thirds and minor sixths
minor thirds and major sixths
The definition of consonance has been variously based on experience, frequency, and both physical
and psychological considerations (Myers 1904, p. 315). These include:
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Frequency ratios: with ratios of lower simple numbers being more consonant than those that
are higher (Pythagoras). Many of these definitions do not require exact integer tunings, only
approximation.
Coincidence of partials: with consonance being a greater coincidence of partials (Helmholtz
1954 [1877],). By this definition, consonance is dependent not only on the width of the
interval between two notes (i.e., the musical tuning), but also on the combined spectral
distribution and thus sound quality (i.e., the timbre) of the notes (see the entry under critical
band). Thus, a note and the note one octave higher are highly consonant because the partials
of the higher note are also partials of the lower note (Roederer 1995, p. 165). Although
Helmholtz's work focused almost exclusively on harmonic timbres and also the tunings,
subsequent work has generalized his findings to embrace non-harmonic tunings and timbres
(Sethares 1992; Sethares 2005; Milne, Sethares, and Plamondon 2007,; Milne, Sethares, and
Plamondon 2008,; Sethares et al. 2009,).
Fusion: perception of unity or tonal fusion between two notes (Stumpf 1890, pp. 127-219;
Butler and Green 2002, p. 264).
"A stable tone combination is a consonance; consonances are points of arrival, rest, and
resolution."
Roger Kamien 2008, p. 41
Dissonance
An unstable tone combination is a dissonance; its tension demands an onward motion to
a stable chord. Thus dissonant chords are "active"; traditionally they have been
considered harsh and have expressed pain, grief, and conflict.
Roger Kamien 2008, p. 41
In Western music, dissonance is the quality of sounds that seems unstable and has an aural need to
resolve to a stable consonance. Both consonance and dissonance are words applied to harmony,
chords, and intervals and, by extension, to melody, tonality, and even rhythm and metre. Although
there are physical and neurological facts important to understanding the idea of dissonance, the
precise definition of dissonance is culturally conditioneddefinitions of and conventions of usage
related to dissonance vary greatly among different musical styles, traditions, and cultures.
Nevertheless, the basic ideas of dissonance, consonance, and resolution exist in some form in all
musical traditions that have a concept of melody, harmony, or tonality. Dissonance being the
complement of consonance it may be defined, as above, as non-coincidence of partials, lack of
fusion or pattern matching, or as complexity.
Additional confusion about the idea of dissonance is created by the fact that musicians and writers
sometimes use the word dissonance and related terms in a precise and carefully defined way, more
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often in an informal way, and very often in a

metaphorical sense ("rhythmic dissonance"). For
many musicians and composers, the essential
ideas of dissonance and resolution are vitally
important ones that deeply inform their musical
thinking on a number of levels.
Despite the fact that words like unpleasant and
grating are often used to explain the sound of
dissonance, all music with a harmonic or tonal
basiseven music perceived as generally
harmoniousincorporates some degree of
dissonance. The buildup and release of tension
(dissonance and resolution), which can occur on
every level from the subtle to the crass, is
partially responsible for what listeners perceive
as beauty, emotion, and expressiveness in music.
Musical style
The concept of dissonance does not
belong to the domain of harmony as it
is presented us by Nature [harmonic
series], but is derived from voice
leading [guidelines], which is an
essential constituent of Art.
Ernst Krenek's classification, from Studies in

Counterpoint (1940), of a triad's overall
consonance or dissonance through the consonance
or dissonance of the three intervals contained
within (Schuijer 2008, p. 138) Play . For
example, C-E-G consists of three consonances
(C-E, E-G, C-G) and is ranked 1 while C-D-B
consists of one mild dissonance (B-D) and two
sharp dissonances (C-D, C-B) and is ranked 6.
Oswald Jonas (Jonas 1982,

p. 19)
Understanding a particular musical style's treatment of dissonancewhat is considered dissonant
and what rules or procedures govern how dissonant intervals, chords, or notes are treatedis key in
understanding that particular style. For instance, harmony is generally governed by chords, which
are collections of notes defined as tolerably consonant by the style. (There is likely, however, to be
a hierarchy of chords, with some considered more consonant and some more dissonant.) Any note
that does not fall within the prevailing harmony is considered dissonant. A given style typically
pays attention to how its musical structure approaches dissonance (in steps is less jarring, a leap is
more jarring), and even more to how they resolve (almost always by step), to how they fit within
the meter and rhythm (dissonances on strong beats are more emphatic, those on weaker beats less
vital), and to how they lie within the phrase (dissonances tend to resolve at phrase's end).
In traditional music
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See Tfd
Sharp dissonant intervals and chords play a prominent role in many traditional musical cultures.
Vocal polyphonic traditions from Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Latvia, Georgia,
Nuristan, some Vietnamese and Chinese minority singing traditions, Lithuanian sutartins, some
polyphonic traditions from Flores and Melanesia are predominantly based on the use of sharp
dissonant intervals and chords. The most prominent dissonance in most of these cultures is the
interval of the neutral second (which is between the minor and major seconds). This interval is
known to create the maximum sharpness and is known in German ethnomusicology under the term
"Schwebungsdiaphonie".
In history of Western music

Dissonance has been understood and heard differently in
different musical traditions, cultures, styles, and time periods.
Relaxation and tension have been used as analogy since the
time of Aristotle till the present (Kliewer 1975, p. 290).
Antiquity and Middle-Ages
When we consider
musical works we
find that the triad is
ever-present and
that the interpolated
dissonances have no
other purpose than
to effect the
continuous variation
of the triad.
In Ancient Greece, armonia denoted the production of a

unified complex, particularly one expressible in numerical
ratios. Applied to music, the concept concerned how sounds in
a scale or a melody fit together (in this sense, it could also
Lorenz Mizler 1739 (quoted in
concern the tuning of a scale) (Philip 1966, pp. 12324). The
Forte 1979, p. 136)
term symphonos was used by Aristoxenus and others to
describe the intervals of the fourth, the fifth, the octave and their doublings; other intervals were
said diaphonos. This terminology probably referred to the Pythagorean tuning, where fourths, fifths
and octaves (ratios 4:3, 3:2 and 2:1) were directly tunable, while the other degrees (other 3-prime
ratios) could only be tuned by combinations of the preceding (Aristoxenus 1902, pp. 188206 See
Tenney 1988, pp. 1112). Until the advent of polyphony and even later, this remained the basis of
the concept of consonance/dissonance (symphonia/diaphonia) in Occidental theory.
In the early Middle Ages, the Latin term consonantia translated either armonia or symphonia.
Boethius (6th century) characterizes consonance by its sweetness, dissonance by its harshness:
"Consonance (consonantia) is the blending (mixtura) of a high sound with a low one, sweetly and
uniformly (suauiter uniformiterque) arriving to the ears. Dissonance is the harsh and unhappy
percussion (aspera atque iniocunda percussio) of two sounds mixed together (sibimet
permixtorum)" (Boethius n.d., f. 13v.). It remains unclear, however, whether this could refer to
simultaneous sounds. The case becomes clear, however, with Hucbald of Saint Amand (c900), who
writes: "Consonance (consonantia) is the measured and concordant blending (rata et concordabilis
permixtio) of two sounds, which will come about only when two simultaneous sounds from
different sources combine into a single musical whole (in unam simul modulationem conveniant)
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[]. There are six of these consonances, three simple and three composite, [] octave, fifth,
fourth, and octave-plus-fifth, octave-plus-fourth and double octave" (Hucbald n.d., p. 107;
translated in Babb 1978, p. 19).
According to Johannes de Garlandia & 13th century:
Perfect consonance: unisons and octaves. (Perfecta dicitur, quando due voces junguntur in
eodem tempore, ita quod una, secundum auditum, non percipitur ab alia propter
concordantiam, et dicitur equisonantiam, ut in unisono et diapason. "[Consonance] is said
perfect, when two voices are joined at the same time, so that the one, by audition, cannot be
distinguished from the other because of the concordance, and it is called equisonance, as in
unison and octave.")
Median consonance: fourths and fifths. (Medie autem dicuntur, quando duo voces junguntur
in eodem tempore; que neque dicuntur perfecte, neque imperfecte, sed partim conveniunt cum
perfectis, et partim cum imperfectis. Et sunt due species, scilicet diapente et diatessaron.
"Consonances are said median, when two voices are joined at the same time, which neither
can be said perfect, nor imperfect, but which partly agree with the perfect, and partly with the
imperfect. And they are of two species, namely the fifth and the fourth.")
Imperfect consonance: minor and major thirds. (Imperfect consonances are not formally
mentioned in the treatise, but the quotation above concerning median consonances does refer
to imperfect consonances, and the section on consonances concludes: Sic apparet quod sex
sunt species concordantie, scilicet: unisonus, diapason, diapente, diatessaron, semiditonus,
ditonus. "So it appears that there are six species of consonances, that is: unison, octave,
fifth, fourth, minor third, major third." The last two appear as imperfect consonances by
elimination.)
Imperfect dissonance: major sixth (tone + fifth) and minor seventh (minor third + fifth).
(Imperfecte dicuntur, quando due voces junguntur ita, quod secundum auditum vel possunt
aliquo modo compati, tamen non concordant. Et sunt due species, scilicet tonus cum diapente
et semiditonus cum diapente. [Dissonances] are said imperfect, when two voices are joined
so that by audition although they can to some extent match, nevertheless they do not concord.
And there are two species, namely tone plus fifth and minor third plus fifth.")
Median dissonance: tone and minor sixth (semitone + fifth). (Medie dicuntur, quando due
voces junguntur ita, quod partim conveniunt cum perfectis, partim cum imperfectis. Et iste
sunt due species, scilicet tonus et simitonium cum diapente. [Dissonances] are said median
when two voices are joined so that they partly match the perfect, partly the imperfect. And
they are of two species, namely tone and semitone plus fifth.")
Perfect dissonance: semitone, tritone, major seventh (major third + fifth). (Here again, the
perfect dissonances can only be deduced by elimination from this phrase: Iste species
dissonantie sunt septem, scilicet: semitonium, tritonus, ditonus cum diapente; tonus cum
diapente, semiditonus cum diapente; tonus et semitonium cum diapente. These species of
dissonances are seven: semitone, tritone, major third plus fifth; tone plus fifth, minor third
plus fifth; tone and semitone plus fifth.")
One example of imperfect consonances previously considered dissonances in Guillaume de
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Machaut's "Je ne cuit pas qu'onques" (Machaut 1926, p. 13, Ballade 14, "Je ne cuit pas qu'onques a
creature", mm. 2731):
Xs mark thirds and sixths
Play
According to Margo Schulter (1997a):

Stable:
Purely blending: unisons and octaves
Optimally blending: fourths and fifths
Unstable:
Relatively blending: minor and major thirds
Relatively tense: major seconds, minor sevenths, and major sixths
Strongly discordant: minor seconds, tritonus, and major sevenths, and often minor sixths
It is worth noting that "perfect" and "imperfect" and the notion of being (esse) must be taken in
their contemporaneous Latin meanings (perfectum, imperfectum) to understand these terms, such
that imperfect is "unfinished" or "incomplete" and thus an imperfect dissonance is "not quite
manifestly dissonant" and perfect consonance is "done almost to the point of excess". Also,
inversion of intervals (major second in some sense equivalent to minor seventh) and octave
reduction (minor ninth in some sense equivalent to minor second) were yet unknown during the
Middle Ages.
Due to the different tuning systems compared to modern times, the minor seventh and major ninth
were "harmonic consonances", meaning that they correctly reproduced the interval ratios of the
harmonic series which softened a bad effect (Schulter 1997b). They were also often filled in by
pairs of perfect fourths and perfect fifths respectively, forming resonant (blending) units
characteristic of the musics of the time (Schulter 1997c), where "resonance" forms a
complementary trine with the categories of consonance and dissonance. Conversely, the thirds and
sixths were tempered severely from pure ratios, and in practice usually treated as dissonances in the
sense that they had to resolve to form complete perfect cadences and stable sonorities (Schulter
1997d).
The salient differences from modern conception:
parallel fourths and fifths were acceptable and necessary, open fourths and fifths inside
octaves were the characteristic stable sonority in 3 or more voices,
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minor sevenths and major ninths were fully structural,

tritonesas a deponent sort of fourth or fifthwere sometimes stacked with perfect fourths
and fifths,
thirds and sixths (and tall stacks thereof) were not the sort of intervals upon which stable
harmonies were based,
final cadential consonances of fourth, fifths, and octaves need not be the target of "resolution"
on a beat-to-beat (or similar) time basis: minor sevenths and major ninths may move to
octaves forthwith, or sixths to fifths (or minor sevenths), but the fourths and fifths within
might become "dissonant" 5/3, 6/3, or 6/4 chordioids, continuing the succession of
non-consonant sonorities for timespans limited only by the next cadence.
Renaissance
In early Renaissance music, intervals such as the perfect fourth were considered dissonances that
must be immediately resolved. The regola delle terze e seste ("rule of thirds and sixths") required
that imperfect consonances should resolve to a perfect one by a half-step progression in one voice
and a whole-step progression in another (Dahlhaus 1990, p. 179). Anonymous 13 allowed two or
three, the Optima introductio three or four, and Anonymous 11 (15th century) four or five
successive imperfect consonances. By the end of the 15th century, imperfect consonances were no
longer "tension sonorities" but, as evidenced by the allowance of their successions argued for by
Adam von Fulda, independent sonorities; according to Fulda (Gerbert 1784, 3:353), "Although
older scholars once would forbid all sequences of more than three or four imperfect consonances,
we who are more modern allow them." (ibid, p. 92)
Common practice period

In the common practice period, musical style required preparation for all dissonances, followed by
and then resolution to a consonance. There was also a distinction between melodic and harmonic
dissonance. Dissonant melodic intervals included the tritone and all augmented and diminished
intervals. Dissonant harmonic intervals included:
Minor second and major seventh
Augmented fourth and diminished fifth (enharmonically equivalent, tritone)
Thus, Western musical history can be seen as progressing from a limited definition of consonance
to an ever-wider definition of consonance. Early in history, only intervals low in the overtone series
were considered consonant. As time progressed, intervals ever higher on the overtone series were
considered as such. The final result of this was the so-called "emancipation of the dissonance" (the
words of Arnold Schoenberg) by some 20th-century composers. Early-20th-century American
composer Henry Cowell viewed tone clusters as the use of higher and higher overtones.
Despite the fact that this idea of the historical progression towards the acceptance of ever greater
levels of dissonance is somewhat oversimplified and glosses over important developments in the
history of Western music, the general idea was attractive to many 20th-century modernist
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composers and is considered a formative meta-narrative of musical modernism.

Composers in the Baroque era were well aware of the expressive potential of dissonance::
A sharply dissonant chord in Bach's

Well-Tempered Clavier, Vol. I (Preludio XXI)
Play
Bach uses dissonance to communicate religious ideas in his sacred cantatas and Passion settings. At
the end of the St Matthew Passion, where the agony of Christs betrayal and crucifixion is
portrayed, John Eliot Gardiner (2013, 427) hears "a final reminder of this comes in the unexpected
and almost excruciating dissonance Bach inserts over the very last chord: the melody instruments
insist on B natural the jarring leading tone before eventually melting in a C minor cadence."
Closing bars of the final chorus of Bach's St Matthew Passion. Link to

passage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaSvJZE3dCI&t=6m11s)
In the opening aria of Cantata BWV 54, Widerstehe doch der Snde("upon sin oppose resistance"),
nearly every strong beat carries a dissonance:
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Bach BWV 54, opening bars. Listen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9nNHSU3Icw)
Albert Schweizer says that this aria begins with an alarming chord of the seventh It is meant to
depict the horror of the curse upon sin that is threatened in the text" (Schweizer 1905, 53). Gillies
Whittaker (1959, 368) points out that The thirty-two continuo quavers of the initial four bars
support four consonances only, all the rest are dissonances, twelve of them being chords containing
five different notes. It is a remarkable picture of desperate and unflinching resistance to the
Christian to the fell powers of evil.
Mozarts music contains a number of quite radical experiments in dissonance. The following comes
from his Adagio and Fugue in C Minor, K. 546:
Dissonance in Mozart's Adagio and Fugue in C Minor, K. 546.
Play
Mozarts Quartet in C major, K465 opens with an adagio introduction that gave the work its
nickname, the Dissonance Quartet:
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Mozart Dissonance Quartet opening bars. Listen (https://www.youtube.com

/watch?v=08uY0-ehL-w)
There are several passing dissonances in this adagio passage, for example on the first beat of bar 3.
However the most striking effect here is implied, rather than sounded explicitly. The A flat in the
first bar is contradicted by the high A natural in the second bar, but these notes do not sound
together as a discord. (See also False relation.)
An even more famous example from Mozart comes in a magical passage from the slow movement
of his popular "Elvira Madigan" Piano Concerto 21, K467, where the subtle, but quite explicit
dissonances on the first beats of each bar are enhanced by exquisite orchestration:
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Mozart Piano Concerto 21, 2nd movement bars 1217. Link to passage (https://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=45drOlTTTA8&t=0m42s)
Philip Radcliffe (1978, 52) speaks of this as a remarkably poignant passage with surprisingly
sharp dissonances." Radcliffe says that the dissonances here have a vivid foretaste of Schumann
and the way they gently melt into the major key is equally prophetic of Schubert.
The finale of Beethovens Symphony No. 9 opens with a startling discord, consisting of a B flat
inserted into a D minor chord:
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Beethoven Symphony No. 9, finale, opening

bars. Listen (https://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=t4N5-OALObk)
Roger Scruton (2009, 101) alludes to Wagners description of this chord as introducing a huge
Schrekensfanfarehorror fanfare. When this passage returns later in the same movement (just
before the voices enter) the sound is further complicated with the addition of a diminished seventh
chord, creating, in Scrutons words the most atrocious dissonance that Beethoven ever wrote, a
first inversion D minor triad containing all the notes of the D minor harmonic scale:
Beethoven, Symphony No.9, finale, bars

208-10
Robert Schumanns song Auf Einer Burgfrom his cycle Liederkreis Op. 39, climaxes on a striking
dissonance in the fourteenth bar. As Nicholas Cook (1987, p. 242) points out, this is the only
chord in the whole song that Schumann marks with an accent. Cook goes on to stress that what
makes this chord so effective is Schumanns placing of it in its musical context: in what leads up
to it and what comes of it. Cook explains further how the interweaving of lines in both piano and
voice parts in the bars leading up to this chord (bars 9-14) are set on a kind of collision course;
hence the feeling of tension rising steadily to a breaking point.
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Schumann Auf einer Burg. Listen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-DmyUI1PsQ)
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Another example of a cumulative build-up of dissonance from the early 20th century (1910) can be
found in the Adagio that opens Mahlers unfinished 10th Symphony :
Mahler Symphony 10, opening Adagio, bars 201-213. Link to passage

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PQT5IK8mwA&t=18m04s)
Taruskin (2005, 23) parses this chord (in bars 206 and 208) as a diminished nineteenth a
searingly dissonant dominant harmony containing nine different pitches. Who knows what Guido
Adler, for whom the second and Third Symphonies already contained unprecedented
cacophonies, might have called it?
One example of modernist dissonance comes from a work that received its first performance in
1913, three years after the Mahler:
Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, "Sacrificial Dance" excerpt
Play
The West's progressive embrace of increasingly dissonant intervals occurred almost entirely within
the context of harmonic timbres, as produced by vibrating strings and columns of air, on which the
West's dominant musical instruments are based. By generalizing Helmholtz's notion of consonance
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(described above as the "coincidence of partials") to embrace non-harmonic timbres and their
related tunings, consonance has recently been "emancipated" from harmonic timbres and their
related tunings (Milne, Sethares, and Plamondon 2007,; Milne, Sethares, and Plamadon 2008,;
Sethares et al. 2009,). Using electronically controlled pseudo-harmonic timbres, rather than strictly
harmonic acoustic timbres, provides tonality with new structural resources such as Dynamic
tonality. These new resources provide musicians with an alternative to pursuing the musical uses of
ever-higher partials of harmonic timbres and, in some people's minds, may resolve what Arnold
Schoenberg described as the "crisis of tonality" (Stein 1953,).
Neo-classic harmonic consonance theory

George Russell, in his 1953 Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal
Organization, presents a slightly different view from classical
practice, one widely taken up in Jazz. He regards the tritone
over the tonic as a rather consonant interval due to its derivation
from the Lydian dominant thirteenth chord (Russell 2008, p. 1).
In effect, he returns to a Medieval consideration of "harmonic
consonance": that intervals when not subject to octave
Thirteenth chord constructed
equivalence (at least not by contraction) and correctly
from notes of the Lydian mode.
reproducing the mathematical ratios of the harmonic series are
Play
truly non-dissonant. Thus the harmonic minor seventh, natural
major ninth, half-sharp eleventh note (untempered tritone),
half-flat thirteenth note, and half-flat fifteenth note must necessarily be consonant. Octave
equivalence (minor ninth in some sense equivalent to minor second, etc.) is no longer
unquestioned.
Note that most of these pitches exist only in a universe of microtones smaller than a halfstep; notice
also that we already freely take the flat (minor) seventh note for the just seventh of the harmonic
series in chords. Russell extends by approximation the virtual merits of harmonic consonance to the
12TET tuning system of Jazz and the 12-note octave of the piano, granting consonance to the sharp
eleventh note (approximating the harmonic eleventh), that accidental being the sole pitch difference
between the Major scale and the Lydian mode.
(In another sense, that Lydian scale representing the provenance of the tonic chord (with major
seventh and sharp fourth) replaces or supplements the Mixolydian scale of the dominant chord
(with minor seventh and natural fourth) as the source from which to derive extended tertian
harmony.)
Dan Haerle, in his 1980 The Jazz Language (Studio 224 1980, p. 4), extends the same idea of
harmonic consonance and intact octave displacement to alter Paul Hindemith's Series 2 gradation
table from The Craft of Musical Composition (Hindemith 193770, 1:). In contradistinction to
Hindemith, whose scale of consonance and dissonance is currently the de facto standard, Haerle
places the minor ninth as the most dissonant interval of all, more dissonant than the minor second
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to which it was once considered by all as octave-equivalent. He also promotes the tritone from
most-dissonant position to one just a little less consonant than the perfect fourth and perfect fifth.
For context: unstated in these theories is that musicians of the Romantic Era had effectively
promoted the major ninth and minor seventh to a legitimacy of harmonic consonance as well, in
their fabrics of 4-note chords (Tymoczko 2011, p. 106).
Instruments producing non-harmonic overtone series

Musical instruments like bells and xylophones, called Idiophones, are played such that their
relatively stiff, non-trivial mass is excited to vibration by means of a blow. This contrasts with
violins, flutes, or drums, where the vibrating medium is a light, supple string, column of air, or
membrane. The overtones of the inharmonic series produced by such instruments may differ greatly
from that of the rest of the orchestra, and the consonance or dissonance of the harmonic intervals as
well (Gouwens 2009, p. 3).
According to John Gouwens (2009, p. 3), the carillon's harmony profile is summarized:
Consonant: major third, tritone, minor sixth, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, and possibly minor
seventh or even major second
Dissonant: major third, major sixth
Variable upon individual instrument: major seventh
Interval inversion does not apply.
Physiological basis
Musical styles are similar to languages, in that certain physical, physiological, and neurological
facts create bounds that greatly affect the development of all languages. Nevertheless, different
cultures and traditions have incorporated the possibilities and limitations created by these physical
and neurological facts into vastly different, living systems of human language. Neither the
importance of the underlying facts nor the importance of the culture in assigning a particular
meaning to the underlying facts should be understated.
For instance, two notes played simultaneously but with slightly different frequencies produce a
beating "wah-wah-wah" sound. Musical styles such as traditional European classical music
consider this effect objectionable ("out of tune") and go to great lengths to eliminate it. Other
musical styles such as Indonesian gamelan consider this sound an attractive part of the musical
timbre and go to equally great lengths to create instruments that produce this slight "roughness"
(Vassilakis 2005,).
Sensory dissonance and its two perceptual manifestations (beating and roughness) are both closely
related to a sound signal's amplitude fluctuations. Amplitude fluctuations describe variations in the
maximum value (amplitude) of sound signals relative to a reference point and are the result of wave
interference. The interference principle states that the combined amplitude of two or more
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vibrations (waves) at any given time may be

larger (constructive interference) or smaller
(destructive interference) than the amplitude
of the individual vibrations (waves),
depending on their phase relationship. In the
case of two or more waves with different
frequencies, their periodically changing phase
relationship results in periodic alterations
between constructive and destructive
interference, giving rise to the phenomenon
of amplitude fluctuations.
Amplitude fluctuations can be placed in three
overlapping perceptual categories related to
the rate of fluctuation. Slow amplitude
fluctuations (20 per second) are perceived
as loudness fluctuations referred to as
beating. As the rate of fluctuation is
increased, the loudness appears constant, and
the fluctuations are perceived as "fluttering"
or roughness. As the amplitude fluctuation
rate is increased further, the roughness
reaches a maximum strength and then
gradually diminishes until it disappears
(75150 fluctuations per second,
depending on the frequency of the interfering
tones).
Assuming the ear performs a frequency
analysis on incoming signals, as indicated by
Ohm's acoustic law (see Helmholtz 1885;
Levelt and Plomp 1964,), the above
perceptual categories can be related directly
to the bandwidth of the hypothetical analysis
filters (Zwicker, Flottorp, and Stevens 1957,;
Zwicker 1961,). For example, in the simplest
case of amplitude fluctuations resulting from
the addition of two sine signals with
frequencies f1 and f2, the fluctuation rate is
equal to the frequency difference between the
two sines |f1-f2|, and the following statements
represent the general consensus:
1. If the fluctuation rate is smaller than the
Consonance may be explained as caused by a larger

number of aligning harmonics (blue) between two
notes. Play Dissonance is caused by the beating
between close but non-aligned harmonics. Play
Dissonance may be the difficulty in determining the

relationship between two frequencies, determined by
their relative wavelengths. Consonant intervals (low
whole number ratios) take less, while dissonant
intervals take more time to be determined. Play
One component of dissonancethe uncertainty or

confusion as to the virtual pitch evoked by an interval
or chord, or the difficulty of fitting its pitches to a
harmonic series (as discussed by Goldstein and
Terhardt, see main text)is modelled by harmonic
entropy theory. Dips in this graph show consonant
intervals such as 4:5 and 2:3. Other components not
modeled by this theory include critical band
roughness, and tonal context (e.g., an augmented
second is more dissonant than a minor third although
in equal temperament the interval, 300 cents, is the
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same for both).

filter bandwidth, then a single tone is
perceived either with fluctuating
loudness (beating) or with roughness.
2. If the fluctuation rate is larger than the filter bandwidth, then a complex tone is perceived, to
which one or more pitches can be assigned but which, in general, exhibits no beating or
roughness.
Along with amplitude fluctuation rate, the second most important signal parameter related to the
perceptions of beating and roughness is the degree of a signal's amplitude fluctuation, that is, the
level difference between peaks and valleys in a signal (Terhardt 1974,; Vassilakis 2001,). The
degree of amplitude fluctuation depends on the relative amplitudes of the components in the
signal's spectrum, with interfering tones of equal amplitudes resulting in the highest fluctuation
degree and therefore in the highest beating or roughness degree.
For fluctuation rates comparable to the auditory filter bandwidth, the degree, rate, and shape of a
complex signal's amplitude fluctuations are variables that are manipulated by musicians of various
cultures to exploit the beating and roughness sensations, making amplitude fluctuation a significant
expressive tool in the production of musical sound. Otherwise, when there is no pronounced
beating or roughness, the degree, rate, and shape of a complex signal's amplitude fluctuations
remain important, through their interaction with the signal's spectral components. This interaction is
manifested perceptually in terms of pitch or timbre variations, linked to the introduction of
combination tones (Vassilakis 2001; Vassilakis 2005; Vassilakis 2007).
The beating and roughness sensations associated with certain complex signals are therefore usually
understood in terms of sine-component interaction within the same frequency band of the
hypothesized auditory filter, called critical band.
Frequency ratios: ratios of higher simple
numbers are more dissonant than lower ones
(Pythagoras).
In human hearing, the varying effect of simple ratios
may be perceived by one of these mechanisms:
Two pitches moving from the

interval of a Major 2nd to a
unison
This file illustrates the roughness
and beat oscillations that
gradually reduce as the interval
moves towards the unison.
Fusion or pattern matching: fundamentals may

Problems playing this file? See media help.
be perceived through pattern matching of the
separately analyzed partials to a best-fit exactharmonic template (Gerson and Goldstein 1978,) or the best-fit subharmonic (Terhardt 1974,),
or harmonics may be perceptually fused into one entity, with dissonances being those
intervals less likely mistaken for unisons, the imperfect intervals, because of the multiple
estimates, at perfect intervals, of fundamentals, for one harmonic tone (Terhardt 1974,). By
these definitions, inharmonic partials of otherwise harmonic spectra are usually processed
separately (Hartmann et al., 1990), unless frequency or amplitude modulated coherently with
the harmonic partials (McAdams 1983). For some of these definitions, neural firing supplies
the data for pattern matching; see directly below (e.g., Moore 1989, pp. 18387; Srulovicz
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and Goldstein 1983).

Period length or neural-firing coincidence: with the length of periodic neural firing created by
two or more waveforms, higher simple numbers creating longer periods or lesser coincidence
of neural firing and thus dissonance (Patterson 1986,; Boomsliter and Creel 1961,; Meyer
1898,; Roederer 1973, pp. 14549). Purely harmonic tones cause neural firing exactly with
the period or some multiple of the pure tone.
Dissonance is more generally defined by the amount of beating between partials (called
harmonics or overtones when occurring in harmonic timbres) (Helmholtz 1954 [1877],).
Terhardt 1984, calls this "sensory dissonance". By this definition, dissonance is dependent not
only on the width of the interval between two notes' fundamental frequencies, but also on the
widths of the intervals between the two notes' non-fundamental partials. Sensory dissonance
(i.e., presence of beating and/or roughness in a sound) is associated with the inner ear's
inability to fully resolve spectral components with excitation patterns whose critical bands
overlap. If two pure sine waves, without harmonics, are played together, people tend to
perceive maximum dissonance when the frequencies are within the critical band for those
frequencies, which is as wide as a minor third for low frequencies and as narrow as a minor
second for high frequencies (relative to the range of human hearing) (Sethares 2005, p. 43). If
harmonic tones with larger intervals are played, the perceived dissonance is due, at least in
part, to the presence of intervals between the harmonics of the two notes that fall within the
critical band (Roederer 1995, p. 106).
Generally, the sonance (i.e., a continuum with pure consonance at one end and pure dissonance at
the other) of any given interval can be controlled by adjusting the timbre in which it is played,
thereby aligning its partials with the current tuning's notes (or vice versa) (Sethares 2005, p. 1). The
sonance of the interval between two notes can be maximized (producing consonance) by
maximizing the alignment of the two notes' partials, whereas it can be minimized (producing
dissonance) by mis-aligning each otherwise nearly aligned pair of partials by an amount equal to
the width of the critical band at the average of the two partials' frequencies (Sethares 2005, p. 1;
Sethares 2009,).
Controlling the sonance of more-or-less non-harmonic timbres in real time is an aspect of dynamic
tonality. For example, in Sethares' piece C To Shining C (http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares
/C2ShiningC.mp3) (discussed here), the sonance of intervals is affected both by tuning progressions
and timbre progressions.
The strongest homophonic (harmonic) cadence, the authentic cadence, dominant to tonic (D-T, V-I
or V7-I), is in part created by the dissonant tritone created by the seventh, also dissonant, in the
dominant seventh chord, which precedes the tonic.
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Perfect authentic cadence (V-I

with roots in the bass and
tonic in the highest voice of
the final chord): ii-V-I
progression in C Play .
Tritone resolution inwards and

outwards. Play inward.
Play outwards.
See also
Chord factor
Dissonant counterpoint
Limit (music)
Phonaesthetics
Semitone
Tone cluster
Beat (acoustics)
Roughness (psychophysics)
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Further reading
Burns, Edward M. (1999). "Intervals, Scales, and Tuning", in The Psychology of Music
second edition. Deutsch, Diana, ed. San Diego: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-213564-4.
Jeppesen, Knud (1946). The Style of Palestrina and the Dissonance, second revised and
enlarged edition, translated by Margaret Hamerik with linguistic alterations and additions by
Annie I. Fausboll. Copenhagen: E. Munksgaard; Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reprinted,
with corrections, New York: Dover Publications, 1970. ISBN 9780486223865.
Sethares, William A. (1993). "Local Consonance and the Relationship between Timbre and
Scale". Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 94(1): 1218. (A non-technical version of
the article is available at [1] (http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/papers/consance.html))
External links
Atlas of Consonance (http://www.sohl.com/mt/maptone.html)
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Octave Frequency Sweep, Consonance/Dissonance

Wikiquote has
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsapaauFoUQ)
quotations related to:
Consonance and DissonanceIndex to Notes
Consonance and
(http://dactyl.som.ohio-state.edu/Music829B/notes.html)
dissonance
by David Huron at Ohio State University School of Music
Wikimedia Commons
Bibliography of Consonance and Dissonance
has media related to
(http://dactyl.som.ohio-state.edu/Music829B
Consonance and
/bibliography.html)
dissonance.
The Keyboard Tuning of Domenico Scarlatti
(http://www.johnsankey.ca/consonance.html)
index of Dissonance for any musical scales in LucyTuning and meantone-type tunings
(http://www.lucytune.com/midi_and_keyboard/dissonance.html)
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