The article is going to be different than my usual ones, which tend to focus on music engraving.
Today we're going to get into just a little bit of theory.

In my composition course I teach, we were talking about the varying degrees of
consonance and dissonance of the different intervals.

Octaves and Perfect 5th - very consonant
Major and Minor 3rds and 6ths - pretty consonant
Major 2nd and Minor 7ths - mild dissonance
Minor 2nd and Major 7ths - very dissonance

But both Perfect 4ths and Tritones have qualities that are dependent on their environment.

The tritone sounds neutral in chromatic passages, but restless in diatonic passages.
The Perfect 4th sounds consonant in dissonant passages, but sounds dissonant in consonant passages.

In his monumental tome, Twentieth Century Harmony, Vincent Persichetti demonstrates this phenomenon.
For the purpose of demonstration to my class, I have made a video with audio examples.

I have decided to also share the video here with you.

ENJOY
(and learn something)

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