In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Andrew Stiller writes: >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.
I hope that's the modern consensus. >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. Not in general. Yes to the first, when the timbres are harmonic, and the register is middle C - 1 to + 3 octaves. Perceptual psychologists have done experiments suggesting that a very low perfect fifth can be as dissonant as a high minor second, and non-harmonic timbres can be designed to make any interval sound as dissonant as you like. The perfect fifth is not a consonance on the metallophones of the gamelan. Experiment also shows that the most dissonant interval between two sine waves is register dependent and (IIRC) is 3/4 of a tone above top C. -- Ken Moore [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web site: http://www.mooremusic.org.uk/ I reject emails > 100k automatically: warn me beforehand if you want to send one _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
