Resolves

[ssiowi]

Hi all:

A guitar player pal, (i.e., Portland, OR area youth minister) of mine invited me to attend a weekend recording session of his band. I sure enjoyed it. The band includes his instructor who used the word, "resolve" several times to discuss passages of songs. What is a resolve? What is the relationship, if any, between resolves, dissonance and consonance?

Watching and listening to the band members listen to this fellow's thoughts about resolves infers some significance that I'd like to grasp.

Any help offered is, er, help...;-o.

Many thanks from the great Pacific Northwest,

David

[cyberfret]

Think of dissonance as tension, or need for movement. Think of consonance as resolution, or a point of rest. Dissonance wants to be resolved to consonance. That does not mean it has to be resolved, it just feels like it should be.

There is a whole range of consonance and dissonance, it is not just black a white. Different chords and intervals vary in how much tension they create.

Here is a classic example of dissonance resolving to consonance.

E:-------------
B:-------------
G:-------------
D:----4--5-----
A:----3--2-----
E:-------------

That is actually a D7 chord resolving to a G chord, just in a very simplified 2 note form. D7 is a dissonant chord. It feels like it needs to resolve, where it feels like it needs to resolve is to a G chord.

You could also play these 2 basic forms of a D7 and G chord and get the same sense of tension and resolution.

E:----2---3--------
B:----1---0--------
G:----2---0--------
D:----0---0--------
A:--------2--------
E:--------3--------

If you just played a plain D chord going to a G chord, you would not feel that same sense of tension and resolution.

In a section of a song, you might have some dissonant chords or intervals that build tension in the song, to a point where that tension is released and you feel more at rest.

--Shawn

[ssiowi]

Thank you Shawn.