Dissonance vs. Consonance: Essential Elements of Music

         Today we're going to talk about consonance and dissonance, how they are created in music and how they interact with each other.  
       
          We all know what a "utopian" society is right? It's a civilization that is the very essence of perfection. Everything is idealistic to the creators. There are no wars, no starvations, and no movements against the system, and this is what creates a seemingly perfect society. On the other hand however, there is chaos, "anarchy" as some might label it, and in this confusion no social structure or civilization can be made out from the clashing of people and their conflicting ideals.
           So we know what it means to live in a utopian society and a chaotic society, now let's connect this to music theory in the form of harmony. Harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches/tones/voices/chords in a phrase or piece of music. When listeners think of harmony, they'll think of interacting intervals being voiced by different instruments or vocals in an arrangement. Typically, people associate harmony as always sounding "good" or "etherial", when really harmony can sound heavenly or uneasy depending on what type of harmony you're going for.
 
    Let's put this into practice before we begin to break this down;

Here is an example of the song "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" written in two-part harmony. Notice that the melody (the primary line) is written in the treble clef while the harmony (complimenting line) is written in the bass clef. The affect of this is to provide support for the melody from a lower octave, giving the song a stronger sound and increasing the range of the piece.

When talking about how notes or chords interact with each other, it's helpful to think of two types of relationships; Dissonance and Consonance.

Consonance is a harmony in which (while sometimes spread out) form triads, chords, and intervals that are considered "stable" or at a resolved state. Dissonance is quite the opposite however, and is defined as an arrangement of notes or intervals that are "unstable", or unresolved. Occurrences of dissonance in music usually are compared to "harsh" sounds, or ones that make the listen expect a resolution. Different kinds of consonance can be further divided into subgroups such as "perfect" or "imperfect" harmonies, but the general idea is that these sounds "blend" well together and give off the illusion of fusion between two tones.

"A stable tone combination is a consonance; consonances are points of arrival, rest, and resolution."
-Roger Kamien

For example; The chords to the left are paired together in this manner because the second is resolving the first. Notice that in the Dsus4 chord, a major second is formed between G and A. Because of the quality of this chord, it is an unresolved version of a D major chord, and the use of the D major chord after it is what resolves the phrase. Similarly, the G7 chord is at a state of unrest and wants to resolve to the tonic chord of the progression (which is C major). Unresolved cluster's of seconds can also create dissonance because the pitches are clashing with one another and want to resolve into a more pleasant m3 or a triad.

But just as conflict is important in the plot line of a good story, so is dissonance in the harmonies of a good arrangement. Without this "clashing" or need to resolve there would be no feeling of movement throughout the piece, and as pretty as it might sound it would be uneventful and...boring. So be thankful of these points of musical interest! They are the embed flow of motion in music!

Here' a video I found that helps to explain this concept in a little more detail by providing excellent examples of what each form of harmony sounds like; Consonant and Dissonant Harmony

If you have any more questions about dissonance or consonance, feel free to leave comments below!

Sincerely, ZS

Application: Intervals, Sight-Reading, and Audiation

     Alright, let's apply what we talked about in my last post. As a refresher, last time I covered how to recognize various intervals using classic songs that we all know. What we're going to do now is look at some of the music that I've sung in the past and use this method to understand how to sight read specific intervals without playing them on a piano first.

Shown below is a 4-part choral arrangement for Francis Scott Key's "The Star Spangled Banner"

Let's quickly identify the intervals that are sung by each voice part.


"Oh -" : m3 (Frosty the Snowman)

"say-can" : M3 (Kum Bah Yah)

"can-you" : m3

"you-see," : P4 (Here comes t. Bride)

     By recognizing the intervals I'm going to sing, I can figure out in my head where the line is supposed to go.

Let's look at another example where we can see the intervals existing across voice-parts.

Look at the Bass and Tenor line (bottom two lines). Notice that neither one is that complicated, but remember that in a choir, the notes are being sung at the same time. So while the tenors are singing a "F" in "bursting", the basses are singing "F" an octave lower, forming a P8 interval.

But when the tenor's sing the "Eb" in "gave", the basses stay on their "F" on the same beat in the measure. Think about the notes "F" and "Eb". While in this instance they are in different octaves, the affect they create when played together is the same: M2 (Major Second)

What this does is create Dissonance in the music (we'll discuss this concept in a later post), and give the music a sense of motion as it moves to resolve to the M3 that is created in the beginning of the next measure (consonance). Like I said, don't worry about these terms because we'll cover them in a different post. Right now, just understand that intervals can exist in both individual melodies and across voice parts or chords.

        For some fun choral terms, let's talk about what sight-reading actually is, and how our newfound skill of identifying intervals can help us do this without the need of accompaniment. If you're in a high school choir right now, you might be familiar with what I'm talking about. Sight-reading is the ability to be sing a line of music after only being given the starting pitch/key signature. When I was in high school and learning a new piece,  teacher would usually have us listen to various recordings of the song before we even started figuring out the notes. After that we would go over the rhythm specific parts of the song, and only then, after days of looking at the music and discussing it's tempo/rhythm, would we actually start singing.
 
         For those of you that want to sing in college, let me give you some helpful advice. Most college choral directors will expect you to know how to sight-read. This doesn't mean get the music and practice it for a couple days with a piano to help you. This means they give you the music, tell you what key it's in (if you can't figure that our already), give you the starting pitch, and you start singing.

          So how do you do this? Well, it's a tricky little skill called audiation. This is the ability to hear music or pitches in your head without music being physically played. It's kinda like daydreaming, but with music. In this way talented singers can hear their pitch without disturbing others by trying to find their note out loud. Try practicing this skill at home or in choir next time your teacher wants you to sing a certain pitch. As long as you know the starting note and understand how intervals sound (remember our examples from the previous post), you'll be able to sing the pitch perfectly the first time without having to find it by humming or "sliding".

        Now these directors aren't going to expect perfection the first time you sing a song, but that's the difference between high school and college. Here, they expect you to have a basic understanding of intervals and chord progressions so you can accurately "guess" where your melody/harmony line is going to go. Don't get overwhelmed as a freshmen though, because usually you're going to be in at least one large ensemble at first, and you're going to get a lot of help from the older/more experienced member's of your section (this will help you really hone in your skills for when you get into smaller choirs).

          I hope this way helpful in explaining how to apply your newfound knowledge of intervals in choir or solo singing. Note that this can also be used in other instruments, but it requires more practice to understand which notes/hand positions will produce specific pitches. Nevertheless the concept is the same. With a basic understanding of intervals and how harmony lines interact with each other, you can sing on pitch with brand new music and quickly find how your voice-part works with the rest of the choir.
         
          Thanks for reading, leave any comments or questions below if you have them! Also if you have a piece of music that you want analyzed, take a picture of it and we can include it in a future post.

Sincerely, ZS

Interval Recognition (For those of you that despise Solfège)

    What are intervals?
          Well, to make a long video about relatable music theory a short sentence that describes their physical essence, a interval is a measure of the specific distance between two pitches. Now some of you might be crying out "What's it measured by? Inches? Centimeters?", but you're thinking about music like it's a form of math, and while it's technically possible to measure notes by the frequency and wavelength of their tone, we're going to stay focused on the bar staff.
          If you've ever sung in a choir or played an instrument before, you'll recognize that a standard Master Staff looks like this;

          As stated before, an interval is the measure between pitches. Each note (A whole note in this case) displayed on the staff above represents a audible pitch that we can distinguish on any variety of instruments. Now in this instance the notes are arranged in a scale (any set of musical notes arranged by fundamental frequency or pitch) and the intervals are very small. This is because the distance between the notes in a scale are small, but still distinguishable. Now as these notes begin to spread out along the staff, or be arranged so that they aren't separated by whole steps, we begin to hear and see intervals. 

         Notice that if intervals are labeled by the amount of "Lines & Spaces" that they span across. For example (assuming you can read a standard Treble Clef), the interval between middle C and F is a 4th because there are 4 lines and spaces involved in the interval (Thats two lines, and two spaces if you want to be picky).

        So using this method of basic interval recognition, we can discern that specific intervals will have a constant sound or "feeling" to them when played on an instrument or sung.

       This is the overall point of this post, because while some "good" choir students may be content in learning that the second of a major scale is always "Rae" and the seventh is always "Te", I find it's more helpful to recognize intervals in classical music by using examples from songs that we all learned as children when growing up.


But just in case you're curious about Solfège, this is how it line's up with music notation. ----------->
(For the basic gist of it, ignore the sharps and flats)


       Let me enlighten you with an example. We all know how the song "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" goes, but can you hear the major 5th in the song? It's when you sing "Twinkle Twinkle" in the song. That's an interval, and a great example of a perfect 5th (P5). Another example is in the wedding song "Here Comes the Bride". When you sing "Here-comes", you're singing a Perfect 4th (P4).

To make this simple, let's just plot everything out;

• Minor 2nd: "Jaws"
• Major 2nd "Happy Birthday"
• Minor 3rd: "Brahms Lullaby"
• Major 3rd: "Kum Ba Yah"
• Perfect 4th: "Here Comes the Bride"
• Perfect 5th: "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"
• Minor 6th: "The Entertainer"
• Major 6th: "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean"
• Minor 7th: "There's a Place for Us" (West Side Story)
• Major 7th: "Superman Theme"
• Perfect 8th: "Somewhere over the Rainbow" 

Here's a link to a website that has a bunch of songs that help you memorize basic interval patterns;
VUC Music Theory     (It also explains what the symbols mean: "P"5 or "M"3)

        Now this post deals more with Ear Training than anything else, but it's still important to understand the critical theory behind it. By using this method, of recognizing that intervals are everywhere in modern music, it'll be a lot easier to sight read complex pieces of music and get the intervals right the first time. This skill is also invaluable in choral singing when one voice part has to find their next note based of one they sang a couple measure ago or one given by another voice part.

        Oh, and if you want to learn more about Solfège and the "classy" way to learn how to sing on pitch, check out this website;  Sol What? Some Thoughts on Solfège . This guy has some great reasons why solfège should still be used, so if you want clarification about it, go to him!

I hope this was helpful, I use this process all the time in the many choirs I'm involved in, so I hope you can put this to good use too!

Sincerely, ZS

*Also, I'll be allowing comments from now on. Please keep them appropriate and relevant to the topic at hand, and if you have an requests for what I should post next list them below! Thanks!*