Culture · 6 pages · 12 min
Why dissonance is a relation not a mistake
A dissonance is an interval that asks to move, not a note that was played by accident.
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From the opening
Dissonance is a relation between pitches, a quality of an interval or a chord in a given style, not a property a single note can have alone and not an automatic error. In common-practice tonality, some relations are treated as stable and others as unstable, and the unstable ones are expected to move. The opening covers an interval, not a lone pitch, the dominant seventh wants to move, and a suspension clashes on purpose.
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Inside
- An interval, not a lone pitch
- The dominant seventh wants to move
- A suspension clashes on purpose
- Which intervals count has changed
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- Consonance and dissonance in tonal counterpoint
- The tritone in the dominant seventh chord