Talk:Consonance and dissonance/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Types of consonance/dissonance

Dear collaborators, Thanks for your work. There is a question that I consider important and I propose to include the following paragraph in the text, with the pertinent corrections:

"It has been argued that the referred forms of consonance and dissonance are phenomenally different. For example, the sensation of roughness produced by a simultaneous interval of second minor is different of the sensation of discordance produced by a successive interval of augmented fourth or the sensation of inestability produced for the leading tone. In order to distinguish these forms of sonance conceptually, the following terms have been proposed: "harmonic sonance" (for simultaneous tones), "melodic sonance" (for successive tones), and "tonal sonance" (for single tones, of a chord or a melody)." I think this paragraph could go to the end of "Definitions.

The reference is the following: Renard Vallet, Emilio (2016). “Sonancia: una clarificación conceptual”. Quodlibet, 61: 58-64. https://ebuah.uah.es/dspace/handle/10017/42485

What is your opinion? Witrock (talk) 15:44, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Most of the article is already taken up with a discussion of the different ways in which the difference between consonance and dissonance (as well as relative degrees of each) are understood. I have just skimmed through the article again, and notice one rather amusing oversight. It appears that the perfect fourth above the bass became a dissonance in the Renaissance but, as far as the discussion is concerned, ceased to be so afterward. This is of course absurd, but illustrates how much room there is for improvement. Your points are well-taken and, if the source you cite is a reliable one by Wikipedia standards (I am not familiar with the publication myself), it seems to me worth mentioning them.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:57, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Jerome, thanks for your answer. Although it is tracted, I think that it is clarifier distinguish conceptually the different forms. Witrock (talk) 07:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

The suggestion seems reasonable. I defer to the expertise of Prof. William Sethares and Dr. Andrew Milne, my primary collaborators, whose expertise in these matters far exceeds mine. JimPlamondon (talk) 11:51, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I, for one, am not entirely convinced by E. Renard Vallet's distinction between three types of sonance. His article is available here. It will easily be verified that it does not include the statement proposed by Witrock above, that "the sensation of roughness produced by a simultaneous interval of second minor is different from the sensation of discordance produced by a successive interval of augmented fourth or the sensation of instability produced [by] the leading tone." As a matter of fact, Renard Vallet does not discuss melodic or tonal dissonance properly speaking, he appears to say that a dissonance between two superposed sounds may arise from harmonic, melodic or tonal considerations. He does say that Sonancia melódica [...] refiere a la sensación auditiva de mayor o menor concordancia (consonancia) o discordancia (disonancia) percibida entre notas o combinaciones de notas producidas sucesivamente ("Melodic sonance refers to the auditory sensation of more or less concordance (consonance) or discordance (dissonance) perceived between notes or combinations of notes produced in succession"), but the examples he gives (Figura 2, p. 61) nevertheless are between simultaneous notes. These examples come from Persichetti, Twentieth Century Harmony who writes about them "The perfect fourth sounds consonant in dissonant surroundings and dissonant in consonant surroundings" (p. 15).

Our article already says that "the distinction [between consonance and dissonance] mainly concerns simultaneous sounds; if successive sounds are considered, their consonance or dissonance depends on the memorial retention of the first sound while the second sound (or pitch) is heard." It also says that "Occidental music theory often considers that, in a dissonant chord, one of the tones alone is in itself deemed to be the dissonance: it is this tone in particular that needs "resolution" through a specific voice leading procedure." With these statements, the article may sufficiently address the matter of melodic and of tonal consonance/dissonance. I am not aware that the so called "obligatory movement" of a leading tone has ever been called a "dissonance". [My harmony teacher, long ago, told us that in a 7th chord, any of the four notes could be treated as a leading tone; this merely involves enharmony. And it proves that there is very little "obligatory" in the leading tone progression.]

The main point of Renard Vallet's term "sonance" (which he calls a neologism) is of understanding conjuntamente los términos comunes de consonancia y disonancia. This is what our article already says: "The term sonance has been proposed to encompass or refer indistinctly to the terms consonance and dissonance" and I think that this may suffice. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 08:29, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Dear collaborators, the paragraph proposed is a corollary of the cited article, not a quote. I used the quotation marks to specify the proposed paragraph. Excuse me the confusion created.

I think that the article distinguishes those three types of sonance. If I read it correctly, the example by Persichetti shows the concept of sonance as melodic sonance, since melodic sonance is defined as a phenomenon “between notes or combinations of notes produced successively”. Thus, It can occur between successions of single tones or between successions of simultaneous tones, as in the example by Persichetti.

Finally, the consideration of unstable notes as dissonances appears in some works, for example in The Shaping Forces in Music, by Ernst Toch.Witrock (talk) 14:55, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Gentlepersons,

Bill Sethares responded to my inquiry re "types of sonance" as follows:

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I’ve always thought that Tenney’s classification scheme made a lot of sense. He distinguishes:

1. Melodic Consonance & Dissonance 1
2. Polyphonic C&D 2
3. Contropuntal C&D 3
4. Functional C&D 4
5. Psycho-acoustic C&D 5

He basically makes the argument that each of these is a different notion of what C&D mean, and hence that the specifics (of what intervals are consonant or dissonant, how many levels of C&D there are, whether they can be effected by timbre, etc) are different depending on which meaning is given to C&D, Tenney's book:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a2qqbbmbbj4b55g/J._Tenney_A_History_of_Consonance_and_Dissonance.pdf?dl=0

For my summary, see the first 4 or 5 pages of chapter 5 of TTSS

https://books.google.co.th/books?id=KChoKKhjOb0C&pg=PA77&f=false#v=onepage&q&f=false

So — to the specificities questions: Jerome’s comment about P4: this is not “absurd”, rather, it is taking ideas from one definition of C&D and applying them to another era's definition. Tenney deals with the P4 example in great detail.

As for the Vallet paper, it looks to me as if this is, in some sense, recreating (some of) Tenney’s distinctions in meaning. If I were rewriting the introduction to chapter 5 of TTSS. I would probably refer try to refer to "harmonic sonance" (for simultaneous tones), "melodic sonance" (for successive tones), and "tonal sonance” in terms of the way Tenney talks about them. That is:

• harmonic sonance ~ C&D 5
• melodic sonance ~ C&D 1
• tonal sonance ~2, 3 and 4

--------------------------------------------------------

Respectfully,

JimPlamondon (talk) 03:28, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I began browsing through Tenney's book (thanks for the PDF, Jim) and I have some reservations. One problem is that he quotes English translations of the books to which he refers and these might not always be strictly exact.

In his section on C&D 1, for instance, the Greek word μέλος (μέλως) is more than once translated as "melody", which justifies Tenner's idea of a "melodic C&D", but it actually means "song", which is not exactly the same (at times, it even means "interval"!). Greek "consonances" were rational intervals, i.e. those that could be expressed as ratios (of string lengths) – including intervals such as 9:8. This is repeated at least until Hucbald, who opposes sounds that are "discrete and detemined by a rational quantity" (rationabili discretos ac determinatos quantitate) to "the irrational voices of animals" (irrationabilium voces animalium). And Tenney's understanding of Guido of Arezzo's concept of affinitas as describing "melodic" consonance results, I think, from a misunderstanding of what Guido meant by "mode" in that particular context. Etc.

Similarly, his discussion of the distinction made by Rameau between the chords with a seventh or an added sixth, appears to mix two things: functionality (which determines whether the chord must be considered a 7^th chord or an added 6^th one – the distinction merely concerns the identification of the fundamental, and Rameau even considers that this identification may change in the same chord, by application of the double emploi) and consonance/dissonance (Rameau considers both dissonant). Also, Rameau does not say that the fundamental bass should progress by consonances, but by intervals of the harmonic series up to the 6^th harmonic partial (Schoenberg has a similar idea): it is not a matter of consonance, but of keeping the root of successive chords within one single harmonic series. Etc.

Tenney's ideas certainly are interesting, but I find his subdivision into five types of C&D somewhat too mechanic. It would deserve lengthy commentaries, but WP may not be the right place for that. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 08:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Dear Hucbald,

I respectfully yield to your unquestioned expertise in matters of the history of music theory, as described above. I was going to suggest that you could have a fruitful correspondence with Tenney himself regarding the topics that you have raised, but Wikipedia informs me that he is now the late Tenney, making such a correspondence likely to be unsatisfying.

May I suggest that, instead, you could have a much more satisfying correspondence with Prof. Sethares on these matters? (https://directory.engr.wisc.edu/ece/faculty/sethares_william) Although you and I have disagreed on many specifics, I have found our discussions to be productive and stimulating. I am confident that you would find an email correspondence with Sethares to be at least equally so. And while I am, far too often, unable to constrain my puerile facetiousness, he is much more disciplined in that regard, which you might find to be refreshing. Although I have been collaborating with Sethares for nearly two decades, and have published many papers together, we have never met, nor even spoken on the phone, so I assure you that email can be a productive medium for such a correspondence with him. I am confident that he would be interested in your thoughts on the late Tenney's writings re consonance. I would be happy to send him an email introducing you to each other, if you would please be so kind as to send your email address to me at jim@plamondon.com.

Respectfully,

JimPlamondon (talk) 10:09, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Dear Jim,

I also enjoyed our discussion and found it stimulating. And I enjoyed your "puerile facetiousness" (?), which indeed at times was refreshing. I don't think that I'll follow your advice and send you my email address, though. Discussing on Wikipedia is sort of a game. Discussing serious matters in a scholarly correspondence is quite another affair.

As I told you, I had read some of your papers, also some by Sethares. I am myself a quite active music theorist and many of my "serious" papers are available on Internet – a majority of them in French, though. You may have seen some and, if there had been any need to discuss these, you'd have found my email address without difficulty. So we could have led two parallel correspondances. I don't think that I want to mix the two at this point. Allow me to remain anonymous here, therefore, which also allows us to be, say, more facetious.

I am convinced that, if you really wanted to know who I am, you'd easily find by considering my WP contributions. I don't doubt that others already have found. They did not break the game, and I am thankful for that. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 11:25, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Dear all,

I think that Tenney puts the emphasis on the different concepts of consonance/dissonance through history (from the greeks to the 19th century), while Renard focuses on the different concepts in the 20th century. Regarding the equivalences between both denominations, I think that CD2 is harmonic sonance. It is:

• harmonic sonance: CD2 and CD5
• melodic sonance: CD1
• tonal sonance: CD4

CD3 may be a combination of harmonic and tonal sonance.

(I don't know if Tenney used correctly all the original terms and concepts).

Best regards,

Witrock (talk) 17:04, 7 July 2020 (UTC)