Friday, October 15, 2010

Dissonance

Imagine beautiful glistening sheering type music, the kind of stuff associated with  high strings, downward percussion, and a lot of layers that magically work well together to form a structure on their own and as one.  They present an even picture of whatever it is that the composer wanted to compose in the first place.  It mimics life, movement, attitude, emotion, and relations.  Now imagine, for example, two streams of pure audio delight that diverged but somehow still make sense together, though they might be going at different speeds, or the light might reflect differently off of the respective water surface of each stream.  Then, around a rock and bend, or a bend and then a rock, they slip slide back into each other with seamless almost nonexistent effort.  Yes, imagine that.  Lots of folks like the former more classical viewpoint--they want triumphant music that makes sense as a whole, that does not seem to go against itself too overtly, etc.  And yet, there's something as rewarding in dissonant qualities as well, if done right. There's folk that like pure dissonance for the sake of liking pure dissonance, which I don't agree with (but everyone that was once a dreamer is now a contrarian, right?), and there's also timeless musicians who rise above these types of divides and create something dazzling. Something new.

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