Who Purposely Includes Dissonance In Their Compositions

[axe]

Just Wondering! 

[Bytor]

 I do all the time. I often try to slip a diminished section into my compositions for that purpose

Here's an example, before we put lyrics and vocals on it

 

[MAdX]

It depends a bit on what exactly you refer to as dissonance. 

Dissonance is everywhere in popular music, but it might not be very evident since most of the time the notes that sound dissonant are used for passing notes/chords and end up sounding "right" in the context that they are used. I think dissonance is super important in compositions, but the trick is to find exactly where you can get away with it!

[axe]

I don't know much theory but for example let's say you're playing a root fifth power chord and you flat one of the notes. That's my idea of  dissonance and it's beautiful. 
 

[Dinosaur David B]

let's say you're playing a root fifth power chord and you flat one of the notes. That's my idea of dissonance and it's beautiful.
 

That's your tritone/flatted 5th interval. Biggest proponent of doing what you're talking about is Lynch. But Iommi is the king of the flatted 5th interval in rock/metal (think Black Sabbath the song -- the 3rd note in the riff) . And you hear a lot of it in Queensryche, too.  Used as a chord in a progression, it's just the devil's interval.

That said, that's not really what I think about when I think of dissonance. The tritone/flatted 5th interval is certainly a dark sound, but I don't consider it dissonant. Dissonant (to me) is notes that don't belong together rubbing against each other in a way that sounds wrong -- as opposed to dark. Dark is just a mood. 

[merlo_zeppelin]

Nothing like a #11 in your IV chord

[Tatosh Guitar]

let's say you're playing a root fifth power chord and you flat one of the notes. That's my idea of dissonance and it's beautiful.

 

That's your tritone/flatted 5th interval. Biggest proponent of doing what you're talking about is Lynch. But Iommi is the king of the flatted 5th interval in rock/metal (think Black Sabbath the song -- the 3rd note in the riff) . And you hear a lot of it in Queensryche, too.  Used as a chord in a progression, it's just the devil's interval.

That said, that's not really what I think about when I think of dissonance. The tritone/flatted 5th interval is certainly a dark sound, but I don't consider it dissonant. Dissonant (to me) is notes that don't belong together rubbing against each other in a way that sounds wrong -- as opposed to dark. Dark is just a mood. 

 

Yeah, I am pretty sure that after Sabbath, it was Priest in the 70s who really milked the tritone thing. Also, Campbell era Dio if I am not mistaken. I think I hear it in Don't Talk to Strangers. 

So that's not exactly dissonance in my book. I hear it all the time in the music I love.

Now playing notes that totally don't belong together... that is something else. I would need to hear it to see if it works. 

[Dinosaur David B]

This is a pretty good quick explanation/demonstration.




If you want a deeper dive, there's always Beato:

[merlo_zeppelin]

Love how Rick Beato's teachings have been popping out so much lately.
Food for thought: if dissonance is emotion, guess what's been missing from mainstream music lately, which is all the same diatonic 4 chord progression for the entire song with safe melodies over it.

[Haffner]

I usually stumble upon dissonance when I'm writing, and if I like the way it works in the context of the song I use it. I don't think I've ever intentionally went for something dissonant, it all just came out that way.

There are some bands, like Blut Aus Nord, whom full-heartedly embrace and exploit dissonance in their sound. And the results can be pretty captivating, I see Blut's Disharmonium as being perhaps the most musically interesting Rock/Metal release this year.

Back when I was in my symphonic phase I dabbled in dissonance more intentionally, mostly because a lot of the stuff I composed was very horror soundtrack/Bernard Herrmann ("Psycho") influenced.