Dissonance

[nuffink]

Certain intervals (e.g. perfect 5th) are considered to be more consonant than others.
What do you consider the most dissonant intervals?

[MoreDread]

I'd say a minor second. Although, after listening and playing black metal for too many years, I'm consistently surprised how pleasant a minor second or a diminished fifth can sound on a piano or played with a synth pad (basicilly anything thats not a heavily distorted e-guitar).

[flippya2000]

minor 2nd, tritone, major7th, but accidentals can sound really wack, hwr this last point is related to what key your playing in, as opposed to intervals. As an aside, some people consider the perfect 4th to be dissonant, eg Fux

[nuffink]

minor 2nd, tritone, major7th...

In that order of dissonance?

[gravehill]

minor 2nd, tritone, major7th...

In that order of dissonance?

I'd say so. Except if the major 7th is actually below the root, then it would be as dissonant as minor 2nd because... well, it is minor 2nd.

[frederik D]

I agree with most, though for example on a piano I think there is one "other" interval (in fact not really other cause in pitch class terms it's just a minor second) that even sounds worse: the minor ninth (example c'-c#"). To my ears this sounds far more unpleasant than the minor second (though the difference is just an added octave)...
Just my personal opinion, and I agree most of the time intervals beyond the octave are not taken into account as being just transpositions of smaller intervals.

bye,

frederik

[flippya2000]

I agree with most, though for example on a piano I think there is one "other" interval (in fact not really other cause in pitch class terms it just a minor second) that even sounds worse: the minor ninth (example c'-c#"). To my ears this sounds far more unpleasant than the minor second (though the difference is just an added octave)...
Just my personal opinion, and I agree most of the time intervals beyond the octave are not taken into account as being just transpositions of smaller intervals.

bye,

frederik

I'd agree with that too - very noticeable when ur practicing & u hit a wrong high note!

nufflink, yeh probably in that order, but to hear it yourself, just play each interval simultaneously - & u shud be able to tell

[nuffink]

nufflink, yeh probably in that order, but to hear it yourself, just play each interval simultaneously - & u shud be able to tell

I agree with the concensus - min 9th, min 2nd, tritone, major 7th. I wanted to know if that's how others heard it (there's surprisingly little about comparative dissonance/consonance on the web).

[tee boy]

Minor second (and ninth), tritone.

I always found the augmented 5th to be pretty dissonant too. Not sure how far it is classified though.

TB

[JumpingJackFlash]

I agree with everyone else.

I was teaching some little kids the other week on Glockenspiels, but one of them was missing its B-natural key, and only had a B-flat. We had to make do. Anyway, when they were playing their masterpieces, one kid played a really prominent tritone and I involuntarily flinched. - The kid then stopped to ask me what was the problem (thinking they had made yet another mistake), I just told them not to worry, it wasn't their fault. I had to subdue my natural reactions for the remainder of the hour, although I sill cringed inwardly when it came up!

[tw0k1ngs]

Every damn interval in Equal Termperament... especially the major third.

[james0tucson]

Minor 6th in Aeolian mode, minor 2nd in Phrygian mode, 4th in the major scale. Using these, you can find all kinds of good dissonances.

JackFlash: Didn't you take the opportunity to teach them that the tritone is evil, the sonic spawn of the dark lord of pain, satan himself comes to earth and rips the throat out of a puppy with his fangs every time that chord is played? One of those kids might go on to be a great Black Metal artist someday, if they could only get a jumpstart in their formative years.

[JumpingJackFlash]

Minor 6th in Aeolian mode, minor 2nd in Phrygian mode, 4th in the major scale. Using these, you can find all kinds of good dissonances.

The interval itself is irrelevant to the scale or mode being used. In relation to tonic, supertonic.... leading note though, there might be more of a difference in a particular context.

ackFlash: Didn't you take the opportunity to teach them that the tritone is evil, the sonic spawn of the dark lord of pain, satan himself comes to earth and rips the throat out of a puppy with his fangs every time that chord is played? One of those kids might go on to be a great Black Metal artist someday, if they could only get a jumpstart in their formative years.

Alas, not enough time. Besides they wouldn't have listened anyway, too interested in hitting each other with the sticks.

[jamesmcfadyen]

The most dissonant interval is that of the minor 2nd. The least dissonant interval is the octave.

[Sascha Franck]

To me, it's the minor 9th.
Even the minor 2nd can be incorporated pleasantly. And it strongly depends on the context, too.
For instance, for a C major 7 chord, chose the following inversions:
G-B-C-E and even B-C-E-G. They will sound relatively pleasant, compared to E-G-B-C.
Now, as we can see/hear, the same interval (B-C) can sound either rather harsh, when used in the upper voices, or relatively pleasant, when used in the middle or lower voices. And btw, in traditional jazz arranging schools, the b2 is even "forbidden" in the upper two voices whereas it's more or less fine in the middle/lower voices. (That's also why there is some sort of "rule", to avoid that very top voice dissonance, called "6 for 7". So, if you needed a 4 part major chord voicing with the root on top, you'd usually replace the maj7 with the 6th.)
However, to my ears, this hardly applies to the b9th, which almost always seems to be dissonant (for a test: try to come up with a 4-part major 7th chord voicing involving a b9 not sounding very dissonant). Oh well, there's a few exceptions of course, such as a bass doing the root job with the chord instrument playing, say, a diminished 7th chord build on the maj 3rd on top (example: Bdim7/G), resulting in a Dom7/b9, which will usually work, but IMO it's more or less up to the voices being distributed to different instruments (admittedly, it sometimes even works on one single instrument, in case the voice leading for bass notes and chords is separated properly).

Whether something such as the maj7th is dissonant - well, I think that's up to the style(s) you're used to. To my ears, it never sounded that much dissonant, not even when played outside a chordal context. The b9 or b2 however do, but as said, once in context, they don't seem to bother me much anymore.
To me (and really, that's just a personal observation), it seems as if the dissonance of quite some intervals really depends on the context. For instance, a major 3rd over a minor chord will make me cringe whereas a minor third over a major chord will sort of trigger my hearing to go into blues and/or #9 mode.

Of course, there's a whole lot of physical "rules" that may apply to dissonances, perhaps something such as "the higher the interval is in the natural overtones, the more dissonant it'll sound". That's why, for instance, 5ths, maj3rds, min7th and their inversions may sound more consonant to our ears by physical means. But then, someone already mentioned tempered tuning, which is f**king around with these physical things a lot anyways, so maybe it's a bit too antiquated, looking at dissonances only that way.
And as said above, to me, there's clearly some "tonal arrangements" using the very same notes, sometimes sounding quite nice, sometimes quite awful.