Good Dissonance

 

Dissonance is not always a bad thing. Like "good trouble" there can be good dissonance. It can be imaginative and improvisational. It can be a harmony of another kind.

I remember learning something about dissonance in modern music classes. I learned to respect it and to allow myself to feel perhaps an intended tension which in turn created an awareness of some kind of wound or vulnerable part.

I learned that harmony and dissonance are not always mutually exclusive. We too often think of harmony as sweet and melodic. But harmony can be the reconciliation of very disparate aspects. It can be the alliance of notes which alone seem harsh or “off”. Together something new is created. Something alive. 

As I scan the now browning leaves and exposed branches of late fall in New England, I am reminded that the colorful quilt-like harmony of a few weeks ago has been transposed into a more dissonant, jagged, tune which derives its beauty from an underlying vulnerability and eternal rhythm.