Your English writing platform
Discover LudwigExact(12)
Invoking consonance is just another gross distinction, another primitive and largely meaningless gesture.
Ethnomusicologists17 and composers8, in contrast, have argued that consonance is a creation of Western musical culture6.
As has been noted, consonance is related to simple frequency ratios such as 2 1.
Consonance is a perception phenomenon that evokes pleasant feelings when listening to complex sounds.
When the two tones are tuned to the same pitch, they are said to be in unison (ratio 1 1) and their consonance is absolute.
Music, he thought, is an aural representation of relationships between numbers and that all musical consonance is based on ratios of adjacent numbers.
Similar(48)
Similarly, dissonance and consonance are far more ephemeral qualities, much more matters of perspective and context, than is often assumed.
Western ideas of tuning and consonance are honored, but there is little interest in harmonic twists and turns or even simple modulation.
The contrast between consonance and dissonance is central to Western music2,3, and its origins have fascinated scholars since the ancient Greeks4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Aesthetic responses to consonance are commonly assumed by scientists to have biological roots11,12,13,14, and thus to be universally present in humans15,16.
However, this picture of broad consonance was rudely challenged in the mid to late fifth century BCE by a new kind of thinker and political agent, the professional teachers ("sophists"), who began to ask whether the laws and customs (nomos, singular; nomoi, plural) embodying political justice were truly a reflection of justice in nature (phusis), or merely an imposition of arbitrary human norms.
Parahippocampus and precuneus activity were found to increase in response to increasing dissonance of short chord sequences [6], whereas increasing consonance was associated with activation of orbitofrontal and frontopolor cortices and subcallosal cingulate, a region implicated in emotion processing [7], [8].
Write better and faster with AI suggestions while staying true to your unique style.
Since I tried Ludwig back in 2017, I have been constantly using it in both editing and translation. Ever since, I suggest it to my translators at ProSciEditing.

Justyna Jupowicz-Kozak
CEO of Professional Science Editing for Scientists @ prosciediting.com