more consonance and dissonance

Yesterday, Carl Lumma wrote:

>I believe this makes a more useful definition of
>Consonance than any other I've ever heard.
>If somebody's got one they think
>I havn't heard, please share.

Probably the "definitive" work on consonance and dissonance
is James Tenney's "A History of Consonance and Dissonance".
In it, he outlines 5 different ways that the two words have been
used throughout history:

(1) melodic consonance and dissonance
(pertaining to monophonic sources)

(2) polyphonic consonance and dissonance
(I think this is where the small integer ratio
definition fits)

(3) contrapuntal consonance and dissonance
(as in the "rules" of counterpoint)

(4) functional consonance and dissonance
(like in Piston's "Harmony", the consonance and
dissonance of an interval is defined by its use -
for instance, the P4 can be soemtimes consonant and
sometimes dissonant)

(5) sensory consonance and dissonance
(beginning with Helmholtz, the idea that consonance
and dissonance are based on beating of relevant partials)

Thus, much of the preceeding discussion can be viewed
as an advocate of "polyphonic" consonance talking at
cross purposes with an advocate of "sensory" consonance.

In my opinion, each of the definitions makes sense in
some arena, and fails to make sense in others.
Perhaps we would do well to use one of Tenney's adjectives
to modify our usages of consonance and dissonance -
others might not agree - but at least we wouldnt be arguing about
*the correct* meaning of the words.

On the other hand, if we can't agree on what "microtone" means,
how can we expect to agree on terms like consonance and dissonance,
which have a two thousand year history?

Bill Sethares


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