al_x said:
i was under the impression dissonant was characteristics of a key, and since atonal means no key, it could not be both atonal and dissonant. is this true?
i said it was atonal
Ahhh, i'm personally not so sure about that. Really, the key should have nothing to do with it because dissonace really comes down to intervals and the harmonic series and overtones. Basically, whenever a note is played, we are actually hearing a number of other notes or 'overtones' however the most prominant is the actual note being played.
In fact It is the strength of particular overtones that actually produces different timbres, eg sax versus trumpet. Anyhow, back on topic, the first overtone is an octave higher than the , the second is fith higher then a fourth higher, then a 3rd higher, etc.
check it out:
http://www.music.sc.edu/fs/bain/atmi02/hs/index-audio.html
So that is why an octave interval is the least dissonant, followed by an open fith, open forth, major 3rd, blah blah.
You are therefore completely incorrect in that saying that you cannot have atonality and dissonance. Atonality simply means that no particular note is given more importance than another. In practice, this generally means avoiding any consonant intervals or scalic movement, which is pretty much what dissonance is.
So yeah, feel free to correct me on anything here, this is just my understanding.
