Dissonantietheorie

Dissonantietheorie is the study of dissonance in music, examining why certain intervals and chords are perceived as tense and unstable and how composers use them to create forward motion or emotional color. The concept rests both on psychoacoustic factors, such as auditory roughness and beating between close frequencies, and on cultural-historical context that assigns different degrees of acceptability to particular sonorities.

Historically, Western music has treated dissonance in relation to consonance. In medieval and Renaissance practices, dissonances were restricted and required careful preparation and resolution. With the emergence of tonal harmony in the Baroque and Classical periods, dissonances were allowed momentarily but needed to resolve to consonant intervals according to established voice-leading rules. In the Romantic era and beyond, composers expanded the use of dissonance, employing chromatic harmony, altered scales, and nonfunctional progressions to intensify expression. In the 20th century, theories of dissonance increasingly treated it as a structural element—able to function independently of traditional tonal gravity through atonality, twelve-tone technique, and other systems.

Dissonantietheorie also distinguishes between harmonic dissonance (tension created by simultaneous pitches) and melodic dissonance (tension produced by successive pitches). Perception depends on context, including tempo, rhythm, timbre, and listener expectations, and varies across musical cultures.

Today the theory informs analysis and composition in many genres, from classical to contemporary popular music, through psychoacoustic research, and in education about harmony and form. See also: consonance, harmony, psychoacoustics.