Why are some musical chords so inherently pleasing while others sound so obviously dissonant? A study of a group of people with the genetic condition amusia, which causes sufferers to incorrectly ...

When we combine harmonious intervals to create chords, there are various conventions we follow (consciously or otherwise) to avoid unpleasant dissonances. Here, we’re going to do no such thing! We ...

An altered chord is one that contains notes from outside its scale of origin – chords such as b9 or #5 are frequently seen examples of this. What the example chords are designed to demonstrate is how ...

Many people dislike the clashing dissonances of modernist composers such as Arnold Schoenberg. But what’s our problem with dissonance? It’s long been thought that dissonant musical chords contain ...

Johnny Cash's Hurt hits way different in A Major, as much so as Ring of Fire in G Minor. The dissonance in tone between the chords is, ahem, a minor one: simply the third note lowered to a flat. But ...