Proper understanding of dissonance?

Question

I have recently had a big eye opener with one of my guitar pieces in how it uses dissonance in a musical way to make interesting music. I have always thought that for music to be dissonant is for it to be poor or bad but it seems to me like dissonance can be used like a theme for music.What is the proper understanding of the use of dissonance in composition?

Answer 1

Hi! How are you today? I hope you are staying safe!

The most extended use of some dissonance in music is resolution from a chord with dominant function to another one with a tonic function. Let's use the resolution from G7 to C as an example.

The G7 chord (G, B, D, F) had a TRITONE between its major third (B) and its flat seventh (F). A TRITONE is a somewhat dissonant interval that provides HIGH "harmonic weight" (need to resolve) for this chord.

To satisfy that "need to resolve", the third (B) and flat seventh (F) present in the G7 chord (V degree chord) will move to C (root) and E (major third) of the the C chord (I degree chord).

This is called PERFECT CADENCE (resolving a V7 dominant chord to a I tonic chord).

This is just a pretty basic example of using a little dissonance.

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Other examples would be:

1. Use of secondary dominants (playing a dominant "7" chord as a V degree of another dominant chord, which will now work as a V degree for another one and so on).
2. All dominant 7 chords have an associated diminished / m7b5 chord with its root in the 3rd of the dominant chord (for example, if you take a G7 chord and remove the root, you will have a Bdim chord). If you play a progressions of secondary dominant chords (G7 - C7 - F7) and remove the roots, you are now playing Bdim - Edim - Adim (the dominants' thirds are the roots now). And this progression sounds fairly dissonant-jazzy if that's what you want!

All these topics are a bit hard to explain by writing: it's much better to listen to all this! If you are interested in having some harmony lessons I'd be glad to work with you! Nice, tailor-made materials (graphic and interactive) are also included in the lesson!

Have a great weekend

Carlos