Sun, steel, and shadow

Here is definition of "dissonance":



n.
1. A harsh, disagreeable combination of sounds; discord.
2. Lack of agreement, consistency, or harmony; conflict
3. Music A combination of tones contextually considered to suggest unrelieved tension and require resolution.

We are certainly singing a lot of music that contains wonderful dissonant passages. Stop and think of your favorite right now (Cancion de cuna? Adoramus? EVERYTHING that frequency is singing?) I'm not really sure why dissonance gets a "bad rap". It is the spice in the music. It is the "sturm und drang". I don't think I'd enjoy choral music nearly as much if everything was "pollyanna diatonic"! Somewhere along the way, however, we have lost the ability to enjoy dissonance.

To be able to hold our own part amidst the dissonance

To appreciate the tension in the dissonance.

To appreciate the release from that tension.

We water down our understanding of music to simple (and simply WRONG) comparisons such as "HAPPY = MAJOR; SAD = MINOR (class, hear me shriek in horror at this).

See the photo at the top of this post? My 12 year old loves to take photographs of the most unusual things. This is one of my favorites. But what is interesting is WHERE this picture was snapped. We were inside the butterfly atrium at Calloway Gardens. Now, one would expect a kid to take pictures of the butterflies, right? The OBVIOUS, pretty things. Not my kid. She took pictures of falling water and of the sun coming through the geometric design of the building. She took pictures of the shadows that the sun and the geometry made. Not the simple, pretty diatonic stuff but the product of sun and steel and shadow.

The dissonances.

And they are beautiful.

Remember that the next time you sing.