Ditto, one of my favorites. Atmospheres. The high warbling note is two piccolos, IIRC. (piccoli?) One of my biggest disappoints was years ago when we organized a concert of György Ligeti's music in Paris. He was to attend, but fell ill and could not make the trip. Great concert, sorry I didn't get to meet the man.
The fact that I worked at IRCAM for Pierre Boulez might also go some way in explaining my taste for dissonance.
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I don't think I expressed myself very well. I mean that dissonant music can be enjoyable but only when you are aware of it's context.
Some people like eating hot peppers, right? When you think about it there's nothing inherently pleasurable about hot peppers. They cause a painful burning sensation to the point where they can be used as a weapon. A baby will not enjoy a hot pepper. But a grown person who is aware of it's cultural context, of how to use it appropriately can learn how to appreciate it.
It's an acquired taste.
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Right, like a beer for example. Or vodka. Or smoking tobacco. Attributes of "Grown up" life.
That explains why I stopped smoking at the age of 11, and never liked a beer. I never grown up
That explains why I stopped smoking at the age of 11, and never liked a beer. I never grown up
not growing up is a good thing, I only smoked for 2 years but I wish I never did it anyway, I smoked anything, even White Ox...
Just before I quit I went searching for a pack of Lucky Strike, never did find them for sale.
Haha. I like Diamanda and I have that CD. I have tried to listen to it from start to finish but, so far, no success. I think my current record is 4 minutes and a half. Haha. I LOVE Saint Of The Pit though.
Last Halloween someone made a radio (college radio of course) request for "Litanies for Satan" just because they had never heard it. They called back and told them to take it off, and they did.
Hot peppers can release endorphins, there are folks that get off on them. Not me, there is a new brand of pre-prepared Thai food on the shelves here that is actually made in Thailand. I ate one of the little red ones, bad, bad.
I dissagree with this statement in the linked article. True some metal bands employ dissonance quite succesfully. Listen to Tool's Schism for a good example. Tool - Schism - YouTube
Power chords were created to eliminate the dissonant IMD products when high levels of distortion is added to a cranked electric guitar. The power chords use note relationships such that the higher order IMD products are integer relationship to the original notes.
Maybe.....its the other way around.
Some of my favorites too.
Now that stuff sounds dissonant to me......except for the song where Slash played guitar. Obviously different tastes for different people, even though some tastes may overlap.
I think my brain may be biased against dance music because of the local trend. Due to the large Latin population here you can find a dozen dance music stations on the radio here in English or Spanish, but the last surviving rock music station left the air last year.....now they play....dance music.
Obviously bias toward, or against music styles exist. They may be cultural, or acquired, and may change with age.
My wife can attest to the fact that I have never grown up either. I am just a 60 year old kid, and I plan to keep it that way. I still crank Hendrix to 11.
Last Saturday Sherri myself and some friends went to an arts and craft show. The live music was furnished by the Oveido (Florida, USA) Baptist Church praise band. The church is across the street from the show which was held on the grounds of a public school. The band played several old church favorites like..... Smoke on the Water, Come Together, and Sweet Home Alabama. Sounded perfectly good to me.
Hot peppers can release endorphins, there are folks that get off on them. Not me, there is a new brand of pre-prepared Thai food on the shelves here that is actually made in Thailand. I ate one of the little red ones, bad, bad.
Everything that we like releases endorphins. Relaxational phase of stress causes release of endorphins as well, so some people like to be scared because of what happens after that.
Yes, true. I like coconut ice. If I cannot get coconut ice in a cafe, I will order any other drink that I equally like. But some people prefer to climb the coconut tree, break the fruit and get some ice. It seems they like the sensation of the relaxational phase after the hard work.
And another man that I don't know, he likes to break into somebody's house just to steal coconut ice!
True, my mistake.
Good to hear that!
Michael Jackson - bad, was the only "worldly" album in the entire house and I wasn't allowed to listen to the radio or watch television outside of certian hours until I was 14 when I had fought for complete autonomy.
My parents had failed to remove the vinyl from the record cabinet and I spun it a few times while my parents were out bible bashing, I was then hooked and started to rebel against the restrictive behaviour of my parents.
It wasn't long after that that the vinyl was thrown out and further attempts to make me submit were enforced.
Yep. It does as I have found, as I get older I find that the same old music doesn't interest me anymore.
You didn't by any chance hear music describing the politically motivated crusades by christians that involved the mass murder of innocent natives did you? no, then the music that they are playing is there and specifically selected inorder to be a positive public relations stunt. Thats all religion ever does, its all about the ultimate gain of control over other human beings.
But that's MY personal opinion, and should remain as such. As a result of my fathers and a certian persons attempts at controlling me I have always and will always maintain the stance that religion is all about people wanting control.
And this is why I am atheist, but unfortunatley that 'label' is becoming polluted and damaged and destroyed by religion yet again, so I may have to switch over to Buddhism just to prevent getting hateful comments and stalked by religious people for being atheist.
Sometimes religious people react very violently when you say that you are atheist, I and my brother was unfortunatley on the receiving end of this.
It was also quite a shock to my parents to hear it, my dad begun a 15 year long hateful and emotionally destructive crusade against me, using every single method he had to try and torture me into submission and try and get me back into the church.
By all accounts and 5 Psychiatrists and 3 Psychologist's opinion I should've been pulled out of the home and put into foster care, but I didn't, I bit my lip and fought back, and I've been fighting for a decade or more, they also think that I have PTSD from a few incidents involving knives.
This might be considered to be wildly offtopic by some people, but I assure you it is not, somehow I sucessfully managed to continue to listen to a wide variety of bands thanks to inventions like MP3, FM Radio and Television (RAGE music show).
Thats the power of music, if some political or religious party wants to control it then I take a great deal of offence at that and will fight to protect my genre(s) of music to the death if need be.
I am now living alone and positively happy about my life, have been for 2 years. and I celebrate this by listening to any damn thing I want to! and sometimes I give KMFDM a spin, just to remind myself who I have to thank for being alive today.
I bet that if it wasn't for KMDFM's lyrics and beats I would probably be dead by now, either that or missing an eye and ear or a finger, he sent me positivley insane and KMFDM brought me back from the brink and helped me put the knife down and stop thinking so bad about myself.
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And I thought I had a restricted childhood. I got a radio from the trash dump and fixed it by the time I was about 10. Ditto a TV by 12 or so. When they were confiscated, I got another from the same source! By high school I had a LOUD stereo and an even louder guitar amp (DIY of course).....so I got to live in the converted garage. Of course my parents didn't like anything that ever came out of the speakers, but they encouraged my "playing with electricity" since I had an obvious talent for it.
And some of us really don't care what you do. I find that people who try to force their beliefs on others to be totally rude and annoying, but that is just my personal opinion....and I'm not trying to force it on anyone!
I went through that too, but it had nothing to do with religion. My mom went to church every Sunday, my dad never went at all. The kids could choose, and I found it interesting and a safe hangout.
My father was a strict military man, and I was the oldest son. The relationship started going downhill when I was about 10 and by 15 I was "his biggest dissapointment", a fact that he often shared.
I just didn't fit the mold of the son he had envisioned who accepted all orders faithfully, obeyed them and saluted. By 15 I had a job fixing TV's and by 17 I had a regular job in the service department of a stereo store. I had to stay in school to avoid beind drafted into the VietNam war. By 19 the draft lottery had changed and I no longer qualified for war duty, so I bailed out of school (community college). More paternal dissapointment.
On my 20th birthday a loud and long confrontation took place where I was informed that I was no longer a worthless teenager, I was now a worthless adult. When was I going to wake up and get a real job?????
In a fit of defiance I ripped the newspaper from his hands and shouted that I would get a new job as far from this F@#&'ing place as I could. The next day I was answering a "technicians wanted" ad for a major electronics company about 30 miles away from home. I got the job and left home shortly thereafter and didn't look back.
I just turned 60 and......guess what I still work here! I can now look back and thank my father for that one! Probably the best move he ever made.
I didn't speak to my parents for two years. One of my brothers found me and attempted to negotiate a peace treaty. No Go.
More time went by, my father retired from the job (and life) that he hated. He eventually even quit daily heavy drinking as his heatlh began to decline. Both brothers and my mom still attempted to negotiate peace. Still no go.
One thanksgiving another peace treaty was agreed upon. I was invited for dinner. I even cut my long hair (one of his major dislikes) before I showed up. Within 5 minutes of arriving, the shouting had started, and I was told to get out.......
Another year goes by....more peace treaties.....more breakdowns.......finally a truce. At first I was just tolerated in the house for short visits and ignored by him. After some time we could talk without shouting. After more time we could discuss things. After a while we both realized that the other person wasn't evil, and in fact we were somewhat similar people. Both of us were smart, stubborn, insecure, and really didn't like someone telling us what to do and how to do it.
Both my parents are now deceased, and I am glad we got to know each other better before they left this world. Maybe some time will bring your familly back together again, or maybe it won't, but its worth a try.
The experiences in my childhood led me to never make that mistake with my daughter. Our house was the hangout for all her high school friends. We tried to support her in her decisions. Things turned out reasonably good. We just returned from visiting her and our grandchildren.
Odd story more related to the thread:
When she was about 16 she returned from the mall with some of her friends. She was trying to conceal something that she had got at the mall. She had bought 4 music CD's. I told her to return the Soundgarden CD and the NIN Downward Spiral CD. After her initial "you can't tell me how to spend my money" comment, I replied that No, and I won't, but "it's kinda stupid to buy these two CD's when you can just copy mine." Her friends were astonished. We had a CD burning party.
One of my favorite diversions is cranking loud music. I often crank the Marshall to 11 even though I can't play guitar worth $*#% any more. I play my stereo loud too when no one is home. I don't find much of anything on the radio that I wan't to hear, so I have been exploring some of the stuff found in British music magazines. The UK and European Prog music scene appeals to me much better than anything else right now. Who knows what I will like next year.
KMFDM sounds too much like dance music for my tastes.........If I can program my computer to play it, I don't like it!
Guys, let's stay STRICTLY away from religion here. Forum rules.
OK, I guess we took an unwelcome diversion away from the point of this thread. The question was Why Dissonant Music Sounds Wrong. We may have got diverted because the term "Dissonant Music" wasn't well defined.
The thread wandered around multiple genres of music from mellow to metal (literally) but most of what was mentioned was still based on the standard western 12 tones per octave scale. Granted we all have our likes and dislikes within the 12 tone scale, but what about some of the other scales out there. There are dozens of them. Many were mathematically derived usually by acedemia, and often carry the name of their creator(s).
A scale can be called microtonal if it contains more than 12 tones per octave. Some microtonal scales contain notes that are familiar to us and some new notes that sound different. Some contain all new notes.
A scale can be called macrotonal if it contains less than 12 notes per octave.
Some scales are based on intervals other than an octave. Most of us know that an octave is the range between two notes spaced in frequency by a factor of two. The note at 220 Hz is called "A" and the next "A" is at 440 Hz.
Some scales are based on other frequency relationships. A Tritave is where two of the same letter notes are spaced in frequency by a factor of three. A common Tritave based scale is the Bohlen-Pierce scale. There are two variants. One has 13 equal steps, the other has 9 unequal steps per Tritave.
The Bohlen-Pierce Symposium | First symposium on the Bohlen-Pierce scale, Boston, March 7 – 9, 2010
For the most part these scales exist in the academic world and are relatively unheard in contemporary western music. Musical instruments for these scales are for the most part, homemade, or programmed in the university's music lab. Unfretted instruments are already fully capable, guitars are common since a competent luthier can make one, as are synthesisers that can be programmed. Old voltage controlled instruments are easy, but making a new keyboard isn't quite as easy.
As with all things unusual where do you hear this stuff?????? YOUTUBE of course. So search for the words microtonal, macrotonal, Bohlen-Pierce, and the master of wierd tunings on a guitar Ron Sword.
Some examples:
Ron Sword, performs Shrutar Veena: The Rishi and the Snake Dancer. Frontiers of American Modernism. - YouTube Mellow microtonal guitar
Microtonal Guitar (Part 1) - Tolgahan Ço?ulu - Maqam Music - YouTube another microtonal guitar
Bohlen-Pierce "Love Song" by Elaine Walker - YouTube Bohlen-Pierce based song
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=3244182 Canon in J
Ron Sword at Berklee, Bohlen-Pierce Symposium 2010 - YouTube Bohlen-Pierce metal
Ron Sword Microtonal 24 tone Guitar conversion demo - YouTube 24 note per octave death metal
Mike Maletta / Last Sacrament tracking some death metal - YouTube 16 note per octave death metal
16-tone / 16-EDO Goldsmith / Mavila - [ 9 ] Microtonal keyboard - YouTube Mavila 9 scale
So, does all this stuff sound "Wrong" or just different because we have not heard it before. To me, much of the monotonic (one note at a time) microtonal guitar music sounds good, even the metal stuff. The chords with obvious beat notes present sound absolutely nasty! Not impressed with Mavila 9 scale either.
What do you think??????
The thread wandered around multiple genres of music from mellow to metal (literally) but most of what was mentioned was still based on the standard western 12 tones per octave scale. Granted we all have our likes and dislikes within the 12 tone scale, but what about some of the other scales out there. There are dozens of them. Many were mathematically derived usually by acedemia, and often carry the name of their creator(s).
A scale can be called microtonal if it contains more than 12 tones per octave. Some microtonal scales contain notes that are familiar to us and some new notes that sound different. Some contain all new notes.
A scale can be called macrotonal if it contains less than 12 notes per octave.
Some scales are based on intervals other than an octave. Most of us know that an octave is the range between two notes spaced in frequency by a factor of two. The note at 220 Hz is called "A" and the next "A" is at 440 Hz.
Some scales are based on other frequency relationships. A Tritave is where two of the same letter notes are spaced in frequency by a factor of three. A common Tritave based scale is the Bohlen-Pierce scale. There are two variants. One has 13 equal steps, the other has 9 unequal steps per Tritave.
The Bohlen-Pierce Symposium | First symposium on the Bohlen-Pierce scale, Boston, March 7 – 9, 2010
For the most part these scales exist in the academic world and are relatively unheard in contemporary western music. Musical instruments for these scales are for the most part, homemade, or programmed in the university's music lab. Unfretted instruments are already fully capable, guitars are common since a competent luthier can make one, as are synthesisers that can be programmed. Old voltage controlled instruments are easy, but making a new keyboard isn't quite as easy.
As with all things unusual where do you hear this stuff?????? YOUTUBE of course. So search for the words microtonal, macrotonal, Bohlen-Pierce, and the master of wierd tunings on a guitar Ron Sword.
Some examples:
Ron Sword, performs Shrutar Veena: The Rishi and the Snake Dancer. Frontiers of American Modernism. - YouTube Mellow microtonal guitar
Microtonal Guitar (Part 1) - Tolgahan Ço?ulu - Maqam Music - YouTube another microtonal guitar
Bohlen-Pierce "Love Song" by Elaine Walker - YouTube Bohlen-Pierce based song
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=3244182 Canon in J
Ron Sword at Berklee, Bohlen-Pierce Symposium 2010 - YouTube Bohlen-Pierce metal
Ron Sword Microtonal 24 tone Guitar conversion demo - YouTube 24 note per octave death metal
Mike Maletta / Last Sacrament tracking some death metal - YouTube 16 note per octave death metal
16-tone / 16-EDO Goldsmith / Mavila - [ 9 ] Microtonal keyboard - YouTube Mavila 9 scale
So, does all this stuff sound "Wrong" or just different because we have not heard it before. To me, much of the monotonic (one note at a time) microtonal guitar music sounds good, even the metal stuff. The chords with obvious beat notes present sound absolutely nasty! Not impressed with Mavila 9 scale either.
What do you think??????
Good to hear that things are a bit more positive nowdays and that you've manged to hold it together for your kids sake.
I was pulled out of high school at the age of 11 under dubious circumstances that I believe my father had caused in the first place and placed into distance education where my mother had done all of my homework because she didn't want to lose me to the department of community services, thats where they tried to brainwash me into their religion further.
I'm in the position now that I've got my father wanting to go into a home but he wants to put the blame on me and told everyone that I forced/encouraged him to do it even though it was his idea and he bought it up in the first place, and I've got a hostile sister that doesn't listen to anyone but herself because she is a sucessful little brat that owns her own home and thinks that nobody had it harder/worse than she did, to top it off I've got my brother who has had a kid to this real crazy christian b**** who is taking him to the cleaners and works him to death like a dog, and I'm on welfare, and he gets less money than I do.
And I'm probably the only one who has got the balls enough to stand up and say what needs to be done, but I'm not going to.
My mother is about the only positive light that I have in my life, I've made a few friends on IRC aswell but they aren't tech heads like people i'd find on diyaudio.com.
I've been trying to get a job for a decade now, most of them I've applied for are cleaners jobs, as its the only thing that I can even apply for without a college degree, and I can't afford to be put into 100 grand worth of debt just to get a piece of paper.
So welfare it is, for the rest of my life, because there is no way that I will be able to get a technicians job such as yourself have gotten even though I have the skill, and about the only other thing I can do is go into buisness myself, but that requires many thousands of dollars of seed money for the government to steal, I've applied at countless numbers of computer and electronic repair stores over the years, every single one of them has told me to go to university and get the piece of paper.
The only thing left is cleaning jobs and even they won't accept me because I "don't have enough experience", and I would simply die there.
Good luck in your travels kind sir, I see that we do have similarities but also differences, and I wish the best upon anyone who has to go through these emotions/experiences in their lives.
If it wasn't for rock/industrial music I wouldn't have been able to deal with all of these emotions on a daily basis, let alone when it was at its worst when I was a teenager.
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No need to look at academic styles....
I played for years all kind of music styles ranging from jazz to rock
but also popular music from my native country Algeria wich use
quite a lot of scales that have one or two quarter tones in place
of either a flat or an augmented interval.
Some synthesizers have built in scales while for other you have
to set the temperament yourself but most i had used have
this feature , it s just that most western musicians do not master
theses scales ortherwise they would use them since they are
a natural extension of the blues scales wich are left uncomplete
and will sound tipicaly the afro-american way in most western
compositions.
As for dissonance , as your point it , it s related to one s taste
in matter of musical colour.
As much as i find pieces as Charles Mingus "Epitath" or Ritchie Blackmore
soloings as extremely musical , purely consonant music like country/western
sound awfull to my ears and just makes me want to throw the culprit stereo
right through the window...
I'm sure a lot has to do with what a person is used to (or their culture, if you'd rather phrase it in those terms). Sometimes, I like listening to fluff. And sometimes, I like listening to dissonance; when I can decipher the time & tonal relationships, it gives my ears/brain a good feeling. Pleasant in a different sort of way than the toe-tapping pleasure from fluff.
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