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dissonance

The rough, restless quality of intervals whose waves never settle.

The rough, restless feeling of two notes whose vibrations never quite line up, so the sound beats and wants to move. Dissonance is not a mistake, it is tension, and music breathes by moving between it and consonance. Harder math, richer feeling.

Learn it: Intervals · The math behind music

The one-sentence definition at the top is the same one the Theory Aide extension shows as a tooltip inside Ableton Live. Hover any dotted term for its own.