Cultural consonance

[Kevin Austin <kevin.austin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks.

Dissonance has 'at least' two meanings in music. As I understand it, your reference is to a "metric" measure (sensory consonance). [I often wondered what the difference would be between a 'musical tone', and a 'non-musical tone'.) Would non-musical tones look like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRS13e5R8GI (speaking of NIHL).


My references are to the [possible ?] language-based relationships of [psychometric], culturally-based concepts of dissonance.

In western music [sic], which harmonic interval is more dissonant: an equally-tempered minor third, or a perfect fourth. The third is an imperfect consonance in relation to the [11th century] perfection of the perfect fourth.

In mid-40s jazz, the harmonic interval of the major seventh is a consonance. It is stable; one of the  definitions of dissonance being 'requiring resolution'. This definition, used in music theory class, is language specific. In teaching counterpoint, the consonant intervals are the unison, third, fifth, sixth and octave.

Ooops, sorry let me correct that, as this is not true in cases like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSOd_v2hK9k
Schoenberg's Op 19 dissonances are contextual, and, in my experience, dependent upon the learning, memory and perception of the listener.


Kevin


On 2010, Sep 25, at 1:28 PM, reinifrosch@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Dear Kevin,
> Consonance and dissonance, "IMHO", are based not only on memory and learning, but also on the physiology of the cochlea in the inner ear. My new book "Introduction to Cochlear Waves" was originally planned to have the title "Musical Consonance and Cochlear Mechanics". The CM-part grew to more then 400 pages, so I left out the part on consonance. A short description of the main ideas, however, is published: R.F., "Psychoacoustic Experiments on the Sensory Consonance of Musical Two-Tones", Canadian Acoustics Vol. 35, No. 3 (2007) 38-45. 
> Reinhart.
> 
> ----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----
> Von: kevin.austin@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Datum: 25.09.2010 17:54
> An: <AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Betreff: Re: Why it has to be played loud
> 
> Perception, you see, is a cultural phenomenon, and is based upon learning and memory. There are musical cultures where many of the sounds are based on inharmonic structures (Bali). Western ensemble music too is based on inharmonic (dissonant [sic]) structures, such as the sound of an inharmonically vibrating set of strings (piano), or large groups of instruments that play heterophonically (such as the first violin section of the Berlin Philharmonic.
> 
> I propose a sound that is not well-known in most of the world, the "tune" being Little Bob Maximus. 
> http://www.matfrygbr.co.uk/sounds/Bristol_bells.mp3
> 
> In some communities, Xenakis' piece, Bohor is considered revolutionary.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0ZKpISpF2U
> 
> In another life, I would have sat in lots of pubs in London, or beer parlors in Munich listening to Lili Marlene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUsePoATbrU. The band would be "out of tune" [sic], and out of time, but most listeners [sic] would prefer either the english or the german song, at around 3 minutes to being force to endure Act II of Parsifal, or a slow movement of a Berwald Symphony.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlbP1UA3ArU&p=A4926CB844E51802&playnext=1&index=39
> 
> For those new to Berwald, his cousins were Mendelssohn and Schumann, and he was an uncle of Bruckner.
> 
> Regarding why "imho" more people prefer poutine to tofu, I think it has to do with the high levels of fat and salt.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine
> With regards listener preferences for pre-1900 concert-music, "imho", greater familiarity with the language.
> 
> Schoenberg Op 19 http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Schoenberg+Op+19&aq=f requires that the hearer listen. It's a bit like reading Ulysses.
> 
> ... and what has western tonality got to do with sound?
> 
> Kevin
> --------------------------
> Reinhart Frosch,
> CH-5200 Brugg.
> reinifrosch@xxxxxxxxxx .
>