Dissonance, atonality, and sin.

[BGF]

Here's what I do for fun on a Friday night. I just watched a youtube video of a lecture given at the University of California on "How the West Rejected Nice Music A Century Ago". In a nutshell, the speaker the explored the history of the rise of dissonant and atonal compositions in the late 19th century and continuing through the twentieth century to today. He discusses a theory of why tonal sounds are naturalyl pleasant and atonal sounds are not. He then demonstrated, by playing sections of various compositions on the piano, how composers would use dissonance to express emotions and experiences. In the late 19th century, composers would use them as components in larger, mostly tonal and consonant, pieces. In the 20th century we see composers making greater and greater use of these devices and even composing works built entirely around dissonance and atonality. To my ears, there is a starkly unpleasant quality to this music, and it evokes emotions and thoughts just as unpleasant.

I see in this how some artists can use elements that can express the sinfulness and depravity of man in a useful and thought provoking ways that informs and exposes our real nature. While others will take those same elements and use it to express depravity for depravity's sake. I see an analogy here for other areas but am having trouble expressing it. Any help from the Board?

Disclaimer: I am not a musician and only have a vague grasp on music theory. If anyone is interested in responding, and you are a musician, please talk to me like I'm 12.

 

[Deleted member 6112]

In my opinion, atonality and excessive dissonance in music is a rebellion against nature. It does not just represent a rejection of an objective created order--it is itself a rejection of the order that God has ordained in the relation of one pitch to another.

let me qualify this by saying that I believe fully that there are many keys and modes which express order in beautiful and diverse ways. It is, as I said, atonality and excessive dissonance that I object to.

 

[Deleted member 6112]

If I may add one more statement--it must be admitted that music (the organization of various pitches in rhythm, to give a crude definition) is founded on God's order. God designed sounds in such a way as to facilitate music. If it were to be conceded that music is simply man's invention, and has no relation to God's order, then any kind of standards for worship song are obliterated; indeed, any kinds of standards for what constitutes "song" are obliterated. That there are transcendent principles governing what constitutes music is implied in God's command to sing to him in worship.

 

[BGF]

Well said. I think that's where my mind was trying to go, but the synapses were not firing properly.

 

[Deleted member 6112]

This is an issue that has been bubbling in the back of my mind for some time.

Your statement, however, about the artistic use of dissonance to convey something about sin: that is an interesting idea. It's not really something I've thought through.

 

[Gforce9]

I heard R.C. Sproul comment on Wagners use of the Phrygian scale that influenced Hitler and the Third Reich. He also discussed it's use to evoke a sexual response which contributed to driving king Ludwig mad. .........

 

[littlepeople]

I'm pretty sure the psalms Jesus sang would sound dissonant to anyone with western ears.

 

[littlepeople]

If we throw out dissonance as a meaningful element of music, then we throw out anything non-western, Bach, Beethoven, all jazz, all blues; and we're left with the soundtrack to riverdance. It's like eating a steak seasoned in sugar only. yuck no thanks. If you have a scriptural way of showing that dissonance (as defined by your/our western ears) is sinful, then let's have it. Simple assertions that there are transcendent principles won't do.

 

[Philip]

Several points:

Yes, dissonance is often unpleasant, but there are plenty of legitimate uses for it. I would, for example, contrast Schoenberg with Ralph Vaughan Williams. Schoenberg's dissonant pieces are a calculated break with tradition to produce mathematical perfection in composition, but one which is deliberately harsh on the ears. As a result there are few who listen to Schoenberg for pleasure.

Vaughan Williams on the other hand wrote a number of dissonant symphonies, partly as a response to his own experiences as an artillery officer in WWI. There's a deep pain and frustration and horror in these works that contrasts with most of his other work, in which the beauty of the whole eventually overcomes the dissonance.

Dissonance in Wagner (particularly Tristan and Isolde) is also calculated to build musical tension to accompany the dramatic tension. Similarly, Bach often uses dissonant chords that resolve later as a way of building musical and emotional complexity.

I do think we also need to be careful about our own culturally-conditioned sense of what is and is not dissonant. There are things that are dissonant in Western art music that would not be dissonant in Western folks music, for instance, and the same can be applied to other sorts of cultural forms. I remember the first time I heard Byzantine chant thinking that it was dissonant. And what about Gaelic psalm-singing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3MzZgPBL3Q

So while I would certainly affirm that certain sectors of 20th century Western art music have included infelicitously calculated dissonance, we need to be careful about blanket judgments.

 

[Peairtach]

It depends what the artist is saying.

E.g. Are they saying, "The world makes no sense", or are they saying, "The world sometimes seems to make no sense".

In a world that has departed from its Christian roots, you'll get more artists saying the former. They'll do this in the other arts, too.

 

[PaulMc]

If we throw out dissonance as a meaningful element of music, then we throw out anything non-western, Bach, Beethoven, all jazz, all blues; and we're left with the soundtrack to riverdance. It's like eating a steak seasoned in sugar only. yuck no thanks. If you have a scriptural way of showing that dissonance (as defined by your/our western ears) is sinful, then let's have it. Simple assertions that there are transcendent principles won't do.

As a professional musician, I agree.

First, you would have to define dissonance.
Second, it is subjective and depends on your musical nurture and what your ears are attuned to hearing (i.e. Indian music is microtonal and gamelan is based on pitches non-familiar in western music - things that could easily sound dissonant or even atonal to some western ears).

 

[PaulMc]

Several points:

Yes, dissonance is often unpleasant, but there are plenty of legitimate uses for it. I would, for example, contrast Schoenberg with Ralph Vaughan Williams. Schoenberg's dissonant pieces are a calculated break with tradition to produce mathematical perfection in composition, but one which is deliberately harsh on the ears. As a result there are few who listen to Schoenberg for pleasure.

Vaughan Williams on the other hand wrote a number of dissonant symphonies, partly as a response to his own experiences as an artillery officer in WWI. There's a deep pain and frustration and horror in these works that contrasts with most of his other work, in which the beauty of the whole eventually overcomes the dissonance.

Dissonance in Wagner (particularly Tristan and Isolde) is also calculated to build musical tension to accompany the dramatic tension. Similarly, Bach often uses dissonant chords that resolve later as a way of building musical and emotional complexity.

I do think we also need to be careful about our own culturally-conditioned sense of what is and is not dissonant. There are things that are dissonant in Western art music that would not be dissonant in Western folks music, for instance, and the same can be applied to other sorts of cultural forms. I remember the first time I heard Byzantine chant thinking that it was dissonant. And what about Gaelic psalm-singing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3MzZgPBL3Q

So while I would certainly affirm that certain sectors of 20th century Western art music have included infelicitously calculated dissonance, we need to be careful about blanket judgments.

Thanks for this helpful post.

 

[johnny]

Here is an interesting doco by David Starkey produced with a RC bias but interesting none the less.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avKJbFqFEFA

 

[BGF]

Great responses from all. Thanks. Exploring further the use of dissonance, what is dissonance used for in most compositions? What is conveyed? I realize answers to these questions are going to be culturally conditioned based on a certain definition of dissonance, but I think some insight can be gained from the composer's intention regardless of culture.

 

[BGF]

Several points:

Yes, dissonance is often unpleasant, but there are plenty of legitimate uses for it. I would, for example, contrast Schoenberg with Ralph Vaughan Williams. Schoenberg's dissonant pieces are a calculated break with tradition to produce mathematical perfection in composition, but one which is deliberately harsh on the ears. As a result there are few who listen to Schoenberg for pleasure.

Vaughan Williams on the other hand wrote a number of dissonant symphonies, partly as a response to his own experiences as an artillery officer in WWI. There's a deep pain and frustration and horror in these works that contrasts with most of his other work, in which the beauty of the whole eventually overcomes the dissonance.

Dissonance in Wagner (particularly Tristan and Isolde) is also calculated to build musical tension to accompany the dramatic tension. Similarly, Bach often uses dissonant chords that resolve later as a way of building musical and emotional complexity.

I do think we also need to be careful about our own culturally-conditioned sense of what is and is not dissonant. There are things that are dissonant in Western art music that would not be dissonant in Western folks music, for instance, and the same can be applied to other sorts of cultural forms. I remember the first time I heard Byzantine chant thinking that it was dissonant. And what about Gaelic psalm-singing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3MzZgPBL3Q

So while I would certainly affirm that certain sectors of 20th century Western art music have included infelicitously calculated dissonance, we need to be careful about blanket judgments.

I honestly didn't find anything dissonant in the Gaelic psalm singing in the link provided. Sure it was foreign sounding to my ears, but for the most part, all the voices were attempting to sing the same note, even if in different octaves. It was neither consonant, since there was no harmonizing, nor dissonant, since all were singing the same melody in unison.

While the question of dissonance in and of itself is fascinating, I don't think any one here has said the use of dissonance in compositions isn't ever useful. Tyler's first reply, which I tend to agree with, speaks of the excessive use of dissonance. I would equate that with dissonance just for it's own sake, not as a tool for creating tension and resolution. Perhaps the definition of dissonance is somewhat fluid, depending on the cultural context, perhaps not. For our purposes, the intended use can be instructive.

 

[Philip]

Brett, there are as many answers as there are pieces of music.

For example, the American folk hymn Idumea ("And Am I Born to Die") uses the sequence of dissonant and resolving chords to complement the overall message.

In a similar fashion, Aaron Copland's In the Beginning uses the various chords to create various effects related to particular sections of the Genesis 1 creation narrative.

In other words, the answer to that is going to be different for every piece and, for pieces of absolute music (such as a Bach fugue or a Beethoven symphony) may not be readily apparent.

If someone were to ask: What is valuable in a Beethoven sonata? The sequence of notes? The feelings Beethoven had when he was composing it? The state of mind produced by listening to it? I would reply, that whatever I was told, I would reject, and that not because the explanation was false but because it was an explanation: If I were told anything that was a theory, I would say, No, no! That does not interest me – it would not be the exact thing I was looking for. ~L. Wittgenstein

 

[VictorBravo]

Phillip said most of what I would say.

I was trained as a composer back in the 70s, during the heyday of "new music." John Cage was all the rage. Synthetic scales were in vogue. The general idea among "cutting edge" composers (and artists in general) was to avoid being derivative. That was the greatest sin of the era (in the modern's eyes).

Except, for the most part, it was trivial and bad.

I was once given an exercise in writing a piece in a synthetic scale that had no natural fourths or fifths so that I would be forced to break out of the classical mold. We were allowed to use any other modern technique we had learned.

So I used poly-tonality. I had three different tonal centers going on at once, each using its assigned synthetic scale. It ended up sounding like a mix of Brahms and Hindemith with a pleasing melodic line and harmonies. My professor commented on the result, one of my classmates hinted that I had cheated. My only response was, "if it can't have beauty, why bother?"

But I'll never be able to quantify what beauty is in some kind of definition. Music is like that.

On the topic of dissonance, you need it for flow. Even a simple melody has tension in it that seeks resolution. Without it you have nothing but aimless sound. As for what exactly is dissonance, that is harder. I can tell you this: after playing a few hours on a harpsichord tuned to an historical tuning centered around a C or G starting point, listening to an equally-tempered piano playing a pure major chord sounds dissonant to me.

In music, there is cultural dissonance and there is physical dissonance. To western ears, an augmented fourth (called a tritone) screams for resolution. But in the middle east, I've heard the same interval used as a tonal center in melodies. That would be cultural dissonance.

Physical dissonance is simply being out of tune. The overtones of a pitch don't match overtones of another pitch, resulting in "beats" heard above the chord. That is the dissonance I'm talking about with equal temperment in a piano. We get used to that and accept it, but, nevertheless, I hear it and sometimes it drives me nuts.

On the other hand, I'm perfectly happy hearing the cacophony of birds playing out all sorts of unresolved chords, and then hearing other birds respond a half-step higher. If you tried to get instruments to play such things it might sound very dissonant and disorganized, but it's music of a different sort, and I doubt one could call it sinful. As an aside, look up Olivier Messiaen and listen to some of his works. Sure, he was a Roman Catholic mystic, but much of his life was spent trying to put bird songs to music. To say the least, it is an acquired taste.

I know, this is a ramble. I "resonate" with Brett's initial thoughts but I don't think it has anything to do with dissonance. I think the problem has to do with the hearts of modern composers who, in increasing degrees, want to reject the past in hopes of being considered "original." I like to remind them that Bach, no slouch of a composer, pretty much defined derivative. He took music from all sorts of settings and perfected it. In his borrowing he demonstrated mastery. Of course, I think it helped that he was a Christian.

 

[BGF]

*To western ears, an augmented fourth (called a tritone) screams for resolution. But in the middle east, I've heard the same interval used as a tonal center in melodies. That would be cultural dissonance.

Curiosity question. Do those middle east melodies tend to resolve back to the tonal center of the tricord?

 

[earl40]

*To western ears, an augmented fourth (called a tritone) screams for resolution. But in the middle east, I've heard the same interval used as a tonal center in melodies. That would be cultural dissonance.

Curiosity question. Do those middle east melodies tend to resolve back to the tonal center of the tricord?

Do you mean the devils triad?....The Simpson's or West Side Story's Maria?

 

[VictorBravo]

Do you mean the devils triad?....The Simpson's or West Side Story's Maria?

That's the one. West Side Story: Going from Ma to ri in "Maria."

Curiosity question. Do those middle east melodies tend to resolve back to the tonal center of the tricord?

The music I was talking about could be called Bedouin ballads. They often ended on an unresolved tritone. Just like singing "Ma-ri" and not ending on the "a". Sometimes you'd hear violin (fiddle, I suppose) accompaniment that bent notes like waves, top to bottom. They loved to end on tritone intervals. At first I thought they were just playing flat, but I realized they knew what they were doing and doing it on purpose.