On 4 Feb 2005 at 15:01, Darcy James Argue wrote: > On 04 Feb 2005, at 2:41 PM, Andrew Stiller wrote: > > > > I would agree that there is no hard-and-fast natural boundary > > between the dissonant and the consonant, and that culture plays a > > big role in drawing such arbitrary boundaries. However, I would > > think that anyone, ever, from anywhere, would agree that a minor > > second is much more dissonant than a perfect fifth, and that those > > two extreme intervals are absolutely dissonant and absolutely > > consonant respectively, and without regard to musical context. -- > > Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press > > Hate to add a post that is simply "me too," but Andrew is 100% > correct. > I would add that there are also timbres that are absolutely > dissonant > -- although clearly there's a tremendous amount of cultural > variability there as well.
My experience with students from all over the world have demonstrated to me that Andrew is simply WRONG. And not all of the ones who didn't hear the difference were non- Western -- some students hear the strong interaction of the overtones of a fifth as much more disturbing than the softness of the minor second. Teaching them to hear tendency tones and harmonic intervals was something of a challenge, one that I didn't always succeed at. The key was that they definitely *could* identify a qualitative difference between the sonorities, and that was the hook I used to help them distinguish them. But the Western definition of "consonant" and "dissonant" didn't do it for them, since it reversed their qualitative reaction to the sounds. So, I'm sorry, but I strenously object to the pan-cultural claim of universality -- it doesn't even hold up within the population of students raised in the United States. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
