city block (1): octaves/chord spacing

[Morrison:]
> I don't think that the overall size of the interval
> is not important. For example, if the interval between
> two adjacent tones in a chord is on the order of,
> say, 3 to 4 octaves (especially in a two-note chord),
> the two pitches start to become so distant that they
> hardly interact with each other at all. I would take
> that to default to sounding consonant, or at least not
> dissonant.

Interesting that you should say that, with the discussion
of Schoenberg that's been going on. Towards the end
of his _Harmonielehre_, he justifies a chord which he
used in his great monodrama "Erwartung", which has 11
different notes, by pointing out the wide spacing he
used, which allowed him to emulate the the overtone series
above a fundamental, putting some of the more dissonant
tones where higher harmonics would go, and to soften
the dissonance (his words).

- Monzo
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> > if the interval between
> > two adjacent tones in a chord is on the order of,
> > say, 3 to 4 octaves (especially in a two-note chord),
> > the two pitches start to become so distant that they
> > hardly interact with each other at all.
> Towards the end
> of his _Harmonielehre_, he justifies a chord which he
> used in his great monodrama "Erwartung", which has 11
> different notes, by pointing out the wide spacing he
> used, which allowed him to emulate the the overtone series
> above a fundamental,

Clearly of course no two adjacent pitches in the harmonic series are
anything like 3-4 octaves apart, and also an 11-note chord is a different
animal from a comparatively sparse two-note chord I mentioned as an extreme
example.

> putting some of the more dissonant
> tones where higher harmonics would go, and to soften
> the dissonance (his words).

I suppose that more or less jives with what I suggested: More dissonant
harmonies can be made less freaky-sounding by weakening their interactions
with other notes by placing them in widely-distant pitch ranges from one
another.