# Most dissonant interval?



## Jango (Feb 16, 2010)

So after doing some research into music theory and dissonance, I've found that (in theory) the tritone/aug 4th is the most dissonant interval. However, I was wondering about quarter tones and such. What would the most dissonant interval be using quarter tones? Would it be an augmented 4th up a quarter? Down a quarter? Maybe a flat 2nd down a quarter?


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Feb 16, 2010)

Depends on how you define dissonance. On one hand, dissonance can refer to a tone or set of tones that demands resolution. Even a completely consonant major chord can be a dissonance. The classic example: Gm Cm Gm D

That D chord is a dissonance, as it wants to go back to Gm (or G).

Gm Cm Gm D Gm

Gm Cm Gm D G

That dissonance is further outlined when that D is made a dominant seventh chord. The notes of D7 are D F# A C. There is a tritone between F# and C, and we can experience the release of this dissonance like so:

e-2--3
b-1--0
G-
D-
A-
E-

This is considered the primary resolution of a dissonance in Western music, hence why the tritone is dubbed the most "dissonant" interval.

Dissonance can also be defined as something that's just unpleasant to hear, with a lot of harmonic beats, and I think you're operating on this definition. What's going on is that the frequencies of notes don't fit into the lower harmonics of whatever pitch you're using as reference. The higher you go in the overtone series, the more dissonant the notes are to the fundament pitch. If you go high enough into the series, you get microtones. This frequently occurs in out-of-tune harmonies. Whether an out of tune unison line or a harmony off of a different interval is more dissonant is rather subjective, though, and has a lot to do with context. Check this video out if you have no concern for the wellbeing of your ears (out-of-tune vocal harmonies at 3:51, not to mention, like, everywhere else):



And, then you can have a note that's just plain wrong. That can be very dissonant, too, in a more psychological sense. I'm going to make some tracks really quick that showcase this, hang on.

EDIT:

Here ya go. This is how it should sound, with all the right notes:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8773269








Here's with one note off:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8773270







And here's with two notes off:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8773271


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## All_¥our_Bass (Feb 16, 2010)

b2 down a quartertone, though at that point it stops sounding like insane dissonance dissonance and starts sounding like overdone chorus or an out of tune unison-it's more of a "warble" than a "grating" sound.

Augmented 4th down a quartertone actually lines up with the 11th harmonic almost exactly, though it's high enough in the harmonic series to still dissonate a bit.


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## Varcolac (Feb 16, 2010)

I don't know about "most" dissonant, but E+Fd (flat 2nd down a quarter) is my cheap and easy instant dissonance button on my violin.

There's a big MIDI list of quarter-tone intervals here: Quarter tone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edit: +1 Mike's post. It's all relative: Arabic music uses quarter tones all the time without sounding ear-jarring.


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## All_¥our_Bass (Feb 16, 2010)

^But those are usually used in a melodic context as opposed to a harmonic one.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Feb 16, 2010)

All_¥our_Bass;1861433 said:


> ^But those are usually used in a melodic context as opposed to a harmonic one.



If you have two people playing pitched instruments at the same time, you're bound to have simultaneous occurrence of pitches. Besides, harmony can be horizontal, too. The harmonies of Arabic music are not based on vertical sonorities; it's much closer to the idea of soloing in modal jazz - the notes you use and the way you approach them are not going to be wildly foreign to the composition.


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## Hollowway (Feb 17, 2010)

SchecterWhore said:


> Depends on how you define dissonance. On one hand...



Man, you blow my mind!  You are seriously an asset to this forum, and to read your posts I have to shut the door, turn off the TV, and concentrate! Thanks a bunch for your continued theory posts....


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Feb 17, 2010)

Hollowway said:


> Man, you blow my mind!  You are seriously an asset to this forum, and to read your posts I have to shut the door, turn off the TV, and concentrate! Thanks a bunch for your continued theory posts....



Thanks, dude. I wish I was better at the performance end of music, but seeing that my freakish knowledge of theory is appreciated makes me feel all warm inside. 

Also, I should add that our system of tuning doesn't yield pure intervals. Perfect fifths in equal temperament are not the same as perfect fifths in just intonation, for example. A modulation in Bach's time would create more harmonic tension than a modulation would today, purely due to the difference in tuning systems. Likewise, music of our time would probably have sounded out of tune to the ears of Bach's contemporaries. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is also a cultural definition of dissonance, and it varies depending on how your ear was conditioned. Any understanding of a music starts with exposure.


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## MF_Kitten (Feb 17, 2010)

M.A.N - (Logocide Online!) on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads listen to the first song. those are quarter notes.

there´s a less processed mix where it´s easier to hear the guitars here: BLABBERMOUTH.NET - M.A.N Claims To Be First Metal Band Ever To Incorporate 'Full Scale Quarter Tone System'

i think in order for something to be dissonant, the notes need to be too close to eachother to make a nice musical interval, and there should be no notes on the bottom giving "relief". you can have a chord where one note is dissonant when played along with the preceding note, but with the rest of the notes added, it fills in the pleasant base for the chord, so it sounds normal. i would say the seminote interval is the most grating one in western music. i would say transposing one of the notes an extra quarter tone would really set it off though. you´d get that out-of-tune-guitar kinda sound where you can´t really tell how far it´s off, it´s just WRONG.


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## TonalArchitect (Feb 17, 2010)

SchecterWhore said:


> Also, I should add that our system of tuning doesn't yield pure intervals. Perfect fifths in equal temperament are not the same as perfect fifths in just intonation, for example. A modulation in Bach's time would create more harmonic tension than a modulation would today, purely due to the difference in tuning systems. Likewise, music of our time would probably have sounded out of tune to the ears of Bach's contemporaries. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is also a cultural definition of dissonance, and it varies depending on how your ear was conditioned. Any understanding of a music starts with exposure.



To expand on this, I'd like to mention Bali's gamelan music. They have stretched octaves-- so they slightly tune certain unisons (the "male" pair of gamelan) a few beats higher than another to get a more "lively" sound. 

On the subject of non-12-tone-equal-temperament, I'd really like to have a True Temperament guitar based on the reconstruction of Bach's Well Temperament. 

Oh, dang, I feel I should also mention that I think timbre affects perceived dissonance as much as the notes themselves. 

Take Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims at Hiroshima.



It's intense, but I think most people would have a harder time listening to _Obscura _metal Though that's might just be me-- or the batshit vocals (which make the record that much more awesome to met).



Loud brass (or dirty guitars) playing intense dissonance produces more dissonance than soft strings (sometimes even loud strings).


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## Abstract_Logic (Feb 17, 2010)

I always looked at a tritone as a very perfect sounding interval.

Theoretically, your dissonance comes from wave frequencies that are in close proximity.

however how you experience and interpret that is entirely subjective. If you break it down, technically a chorus effect would be dissonance but you don't interpret it as such from being conditioned to hear it.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Feb 18, 2010)

Abstract_Logic said:


> I always looked at a tritone as a very perfect sounding interval.


How does a tritone sound perfect? I've always understood perfect intervals to not lend any quality to a chord or dyad - fifths and octaves practically blend into the root note, and even fourths sound harmonically empty (though they are the most dissonant of the perfect intervals, particularly when located in the bass of a chord). The major/minor/augmented/diminished intervals allow us to say "this is a major chord", or "this is a minor chord", or "this is an augmented chord", or, in the case of the tritone, "this is a diminished chord". Perfect intervals are rather ambiguous, in comparison.


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## Dei (Feb 18, 2010)

TonalArchitect said:


> Take Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims at Hiroshima.




I don't think i can express how scared I feel when i listened to this.
Creeps me right out.


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## ryzorzen (Feb 18, 2010)

ahhh that is intense and dissonant as fcuk


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## AliceAxe (Jun 14, 2010)

I just found this interesting article whilst reading up on medieval music:


BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The Devil's Music


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jun 14, 2010)

AliceAxe said:


> BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The Devil's Music



The article misrepresents musica ficta.


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## AliceAxe (Jun 14, 2010)

SchecterWhore said:


> The article misrepresents musica ficta.


 oh ? could you elaborate?


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## LamaSabachthani (Jun 14, 2010)

Jango said:


> So after doing some research into music theory and dissonance, I've found that (in theory) the tritone/aug 4th is the most dissonant interval. However, I was wondering about quarter tones and such. What would the most dissonant interval be using quarter tones? Would it be an augmented 4th up a quarter? Down a quarter? Maybe a flat 2nd down a quarter?



I had always thought that the minor 2nd interval played harmonically was pretty dirty...in a good way


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jun 14, 2010)

AliceAxe said:


> oh ? could you elaborate?



"It was called Diabolus in Musica by two or three writers in the medieval or renaissance [period]. It was 'false music', the intervals weren't natural.

They may have thought it was devilishly hard to teach the singers not to sing it. I don't think they ever thought of it as the Devil dwelling in music."

I don't know if he's talking about the tritone itself as musica ficta (musica ficta = 'false music'), which is not correct. Musica ficta is a part of medieval vocal training that allows singers to change notes in order to avoid dissonant melodic intervals, namely the tritone. If you saw a leap from B to F, it was assumed that you would sing the B as a Bb. And I'm not quite as clear on the hexachord system, but singers were taught that there is only one half-step in a hexachord: between mi and fa. Anything with a sharp was considered to be mi within the hexachord, and anything with a flat was considered to be fa. I don't think they thought that it was "devilishly hard to teach the singers not to sing" the tritone, because it's a historically difficult interval to sing; we tend toward a perfect fourth or perfect fifth, and anything in between is hard to keep in tune. Other instruments, of course, have no problem playing the interval, but the presence of non-vocal instruments in liturgical music was rare and was probably limited to some sort of drone instrument or other form of accompaniment to the singing. By the time of the counter-reformation, music in the Catholic church was sung a cappella ("cappella" means chapel, specifically referring to the style of music sung in the Sistine chapel, which may or may not have had instrumental accompaniment [it's debated]), and diminished and augmented intervals were deliberately avoided, perhaps out of earlier associations regarding ficta.


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## AliceAxe (Jun 15, 2010)

thanks for that great info


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## getaway_fromme (Jun 15, 2010)

Minor 2nd is the most dissonant interval. A quarter 2nd would be the most dissonant in that tuning system. Believe me. Tuning a minor 2nd a cappella is the hardest thing to do.


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## Trespass (Jun 15, 2010)

Tritone wasn't "suppressed" in the Middle Ages in the sense of some kind of banned literature. It was used, even in church plays, usually to denote a demonic occurrence or the coming of the devil himself (as a character tempting the fate of x or y individual). There was certain rules for it's usage, but no "suppression". Besides, triadic harmony would've been considered dissonant for the time, and I suspect few musicians of that period would even _want_ to stretch the boundary with "dissonant" music.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jun 16, 2010)

Trespass said:


> Tritone wasn't "suppressed" in the Middle Ages in the sense of some kind of banned literature. It was used, even in church plays, usually to denote a demonic occurrence or the coming of the devil himself (as a character tempting the fate of x or y individual). There was certain rules for it's usage, but no "suppression". Besides, triadic harmony would've been considered dissonant for the time, and I suspect few musicians of that period would even _want_ to stretch the boundary with "dissonant" music.



I don't know about people not wanting to stretch the boundaries of music back then, even in the Church; I took a music history class a year ago, and we listened to a crazy motet (I think it was Italian) that came right before the Contenance Angloise style took hold. The harmonies were so crazy, I swear it sounded like a twentieth century piece. I'll have to dig it up.

As for usage of the tritone, it was one of those things that you had to approach and resolve in a specific way, but I don't know too much about how and when that rule became defined. I assume that harmonic tritones were more common during the rise of polyphony than they were in the days of organum, but I wouldn't trust myself saying that too much.

Sadly, I don't know much more on this subject, other than that the devil, when portrayed, was never given singing parts.


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## Dee Jay Drugs (Jun 16, 2010)

SchecterWhore said:


> I don't know about people not wanting to stretch the boundaries of music back then, even in the Church; I took a music history class a year ago, and we listened to a crazy motet (I think it was Italian) that came right before the Contenance Angloise style took hold. The harmonies were so crazy, I swear it sounded like a twentieth century piece. I'll have to dig it up.



Yeah, they didn't really hear chords in the same way, lines weren't supposed to resolve to a rigid harmonic rhythm. It wounds weird to us, especially because without a rigid harmonic rhythm, they would write rather complex rhythmic figures in a given part, to say the least.



SchecterWhore said:


> As for usage of the tritone, it was one of those things that you had to approach and resolve in a specific way, but I don't know too much about how and when that rule became defined. I assume that harmonic tritones were more common during the rise of polyphony than they were in the days of organum, but I wouldn't trust myself saying that too much.



Tritones wouldn't have been used too much in modal music because it'll just pull one's ear towards major tonality. Of course, that's a bit ahistorical, as we in 2010 are far more used to tonal music and thus have to be more careful to keep modal music sounding modal. It was easier during the ars antica/nova eras.


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## MaKo´s Tethan (Jun 16, 2010)

SchecterWhore said:


> e-2--3
> b-1--0
> G-
> D-
> ...


fixed, sorry. good post.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jun 17, 2010)

Dee Jay Drugs said:


> Yeah, they didn't really hear chords in the same way, lines weren't supposed to resolve to a rigid harmonic rhythm. It wounds weird to us, especially because without a rigid harmonic rhythm, they would write rather complex rhythmic figures in a given part, to say the least.



Chordal harmony didn't really come into its own until the end of the Renaissance and into the Baroque. Polyphony was thought of as intervals moving to other intervals, and counterpoints to the existing melody or melodies. The main difference between modality and tonality is that tonality defines a direction to the music, whereas modality does not have the same sense of direction. In the words of a band director I had two years ago, up until the 1600's, you could play the same music forwards and backwards, and it would sound fine. The advent of the chord progression made Western music considerably more linear. But the melodic vocabulary didn't change a whole lot: they still had melodic suspensions and other devices that we still recognize in today's music. Like I said, though, my understanding of modal counterpoint and polyphony is rudimentary, at best, so I can't comment too extensively on this subject.



> Tritones wouldn't have been used too much in modal music because it'll just pull one's ear towards major tonality. Of course, that's a bit ahistorical, as we in 2010 are far more used to tonal music and thus have to be more careful to keep modal music sounding modal. It was easier during the ars antica/nova eras.



People weren't thinking of modality versus tonality in the Middle Ages. If my intuition serves me, I'm going to guess that it has more to do with the perfect fifth being the 'resolved' interval, and thirds and sixths being perceived as dissonances, seeing as the resolution of a tritone (a dissonance) is either to a third or sixth (another dissonance). Therefore, we can extrapolate that as thirds became more prevalent in Western art music, so did the contrapuntal resolution of the tritone. Correct me if I'm wrong.


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