the.com/dissonance
the itch in your ears that begs the next chord to scratch it.
means A clash or lack of harmony between sounds, ideas, or feelings — a tension that wants resolving.
from From Latin 'dissonare,' to sound apart or out of tune, built from 'dis-' (apart) plus 'sonare' (to sound) — the same 'sonare' that hums beneath 'sound,' 'sonic,' and 'resonate.' It reached English through French 'dissonance,' first describing jarring music before it spread to any jarring of minds; psychologists later borrowed it for 'cognitive dissonance,' that mental wince when your beliefs refuse to chord.
- brain reward
- resolution releases dopamine; tension makes the payoff sweeter
- once banned
- the tritone was nicknamed the devil in music
- cognitive cousin
- festinger named mental discomfort after this musical tension
- jazz fuel
- entire genres live inside the unresolved chord
- culturally relative
- what jars one ear soothes another
for instance
bitonal chord in stravinsky — firebird ballet (1910) uses simultaneous major and minor chords creating jarring effect