Lesson 2 - Consonance and Dissonance
We learned a little about consonance and dissonance in the course Intervals. Consonance, we learned, is the relative pleasantness of a sound. Dissonance is the relative unpleasantness of a sound. We even learned that there are mathematical reasons why some sounds are consonant and others are dissonant.Essentially, a chord is a collection of intervals. The more consonant the intervals in the chord, the more consonant the chord. The more dissonant the intervals in the chord, the more dissonant the chord. The most consonant chords are those that contain only Perfect Octaves, fifths and fourths. The most dissonant chords will have lots of seconds, sevenths and tritone intervals.
It is important to keep consonance and dissonance in mind when play and writing music. It helps us decide what types of chords to use. Most music we enjoy uses an alternating between consonance and dissonance to keep us interested.
©2004 Keith Prater