Music serves a multitude of purposes. We turn to sound to exacerbate, dismiss, or mediate our emotions. We turn to it for productivity, for leisure, for energy, for release. A branch of sound that I carry a nestled nook for, is dissonance.
1. 1598– in Music, A combination of tones causing beats (cf. beat n.1 II.9), and thus producing a harsh effect; also, a note which in combination with others produces this effect.
The result of dissonance is a sense of decay- a feeling of result, one that may be an aberation from what is expected. This disarray from the wonted offers the soul comfort and place for the emotions it may feel shame of- those of anger, of frustration, of embarressment, disillusionment.
Dissonance in music divides. Not everyone shares the emotions that it nurtures. It is harsh, and abbrasive to the moods of the goodly. But dissonance also builds tension to enhance release. Mildy masochistic, dissonance offers the sufferer a non-harmful way of releasing painful and private emotion. It offers a pathway of resistant against the self-harm and abuse that these emotions can lead to- release is essential, and finding healthy methods of release is the key to the return of emotional, spiritual, and worldy joy.
In days of rot, where all feels like autumn leaves in wet gutters, sometimes all you can do is sit with the decay. I argue this is healthy. If the good days may come the bad must also. And if in the same style that we reach for joy in sounds to enhance our good passings, we are only human in our construction of the ill passing environments.