Who here likes dissonant music?
Dissonance can be used as a deliberate aural insult to the listener, like burnout jazz or punk rock where they deliberately play whatever the fuck they feel like without regard to any musical rules, harmony, composition, mood, whatever. It is the sound of confusion, chaos, anger or boredom, it is usually not intellectual although some supposed artists claim it to be so, and the art critics doth proclaim it so to hoist their own petard in association with the new cool 'modern' sound. It happens in every music genre, every decade or so, probably going back to drummers in mesopotamia and central africa who couldn't keep the beat so they invented a "new artform."
The other kind of dissonance is very high art indeed. It is sophisticated harmony of the highest order. It can evoke the most powerful and serious emotions in the listener who is able to open to the strong stimulus. Some of the greatest modern composers (>1900) use dissonance very artfully to portray the feelings of war, anguish, regret, and in some cases even joy, newness, creative impulse.
Maybe dissonance is an acquired taste to listeners not yet weened off the simple and primitive I-IV-V harmony of popular music. Dissonant harmonies have been the musical vegetables for all great musicians who listen to music above their own abillities. It opens the mind to new possibilities.
Classical composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries like Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Stravinski were famous for their enlightened grasp of dissonance as compositional element. They made dissonance cool, and their prodigies emulated them, even in other genres like jazz and blues. Blues notes are by definition dissonant, they conflict with the underlying chord to evoke a stronger emotional response than just the straight melody.
In the 1940s, jazz experimenters mixed blues, pop and the edgiest classical innovations to come up with a new set of rules for instrumental improvisation. They employed dissonant harmonies and melodic phrases in extreme dissonance with the root chord to once again evoke a passionate response from young listeners whose minds were open to the new and sophisticated sound. Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell were the pointy end of the movement. Their pushing the boundaries of harmonic invention influenced the popular and classical music of the 60s and into the modern era. Pop and rock musicians of the last 60 years all drank deeply from the well of rich, dissonant harmonies left to them by Powell and Monk, Stravinsky. Bands like Zeppelin, Queen, even later Beatles used darker more colorful harmonies (sitar anyone?) to elicit extreme emotional response from young people. Minor keys are in effect a mild form of dissonance. Blues is stronger with flatted 3rds and sharp 9, occasional sharp 11, bebop is much stronger with tensions applied to alternate chords making extremely divergent harmony played over the pop tunes of the day in a "fuck you" kind of rebellious way that 1940s teenagers loved. Blues took over pop with elvis, then pop sweetened again with early Beatles only to go dark with dissonance of the hard rock bands of the 70s. In this time jazz had dumped traditional harmony and was fully submerged in dissonance, some of it the BS variety from those who would be Miles, but much of it was serious music.
We are just leaving a period of sweet candy music like the late 30s, early 60s and late 70s, with minimal dissonance, maximum commercialism. Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, Gaga. Before that rap was a mostly completely dissonant art, which invoked a very passionate response from its adherents while as most dissonant music does, pissing off the traditional music establishment, all of who were ensnared yb the power of dissonance in their own youth. We should expect a new wave of dissonant music to literally "pop up" in the next few years - pop into the foreground of current popular music, and start a new serious musical movement.
Meanwhile, out of the bright light of current pop, there are always experimental artists pushing the boundaries, from these will emerge the future pop trends.
Today while driving errands I heard playing on one of my local jazz stations a tune called "Echoes" by Steve Lehman, from his album "Travail, Transformation and Flow."
The whole track is sampled on his webpage:
http://www.stevelehman.com/musicScroll down, or search page for echoes." I've not yet sampled the other tracks. This tune was able to penetrate my heart, open me up to a new idea and feeling. It is always enjoyable and expansive to find new music, it opens up a new doorway to walk through. A new opportunity to grow spiritually, enabled by great music.
I also love Vincent Persichetti, his dissonant compositions are some of the most intense yet accessible dissonant music. I love his Sonatas for Harpsichord written in the 60s-70s? He was another seeker, ignoring the popular trends, digging for gold where he knew it was to be found, in the darkness of dissonant harmonies.
Modern movie soundtracks are replete with heavy dissonance. The sound of an alien space ship is a low frequency dissonant chord played with squarewave patch on a synth. Even epic productions like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc are full of dissonant and minor key melodies and harmonies. This is what people want. They want to feel the full force of music acting upon them. Only dissonant, advanced harmonies can do that.
Do you like dissonance in your music?
What artists? What genres, what time period?
