Dissonance

Our brains are hardwired to enjoy harmony. If you sit down at a piano and play C-E-G all at once, you are playing a C major chord. It feels solid, harmonious and reliable, like a church hymn or a barbershop quartet. But what happens if, on top of that chord, you play a B? The feeling shifts. The B on top and the C on the bottom rub against each other with the slightest dissonance. There’s a shimmer, a hint of friction, and a sense of possibility and movement. Suddenly, we step out of the stone church that is C major, into the spring morning that is C major 7th.

Life is full of major 7ths.  It’s the single anchovy that a chef slips surreptitiously into the stew. It’s the shooting star against the dark sky and the unchanging constellations. It’s the wildflower growing up through the crack in the sidewalk. All around us, little notes of slight dissonance add shimmer and movement and possibility to an otherwise static world. All you have to do is look for them. Once you start seeing them, you can’t stop. And once you realize what they can do, you start slipping them into every song you sing.