Musically Speaking: Dissonance.

   

​     When I am working with filmmakers and other creatives and we are talking about the music that is involved with a project I've noticed that there can be a tendency for them to add in a disclaimer like "I don't know if this is the best way to describe it" or "I don't know the musical term" or "I'm not very musically literate"  and that has inspired me to write this new section:
                              Musically Speaking...

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One word that often gets used by people who claim to not know how to speak about music is dissonance so I though I would clarify that term:
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     Musical Dissonance. You've heard it before, like a baby banging on many keys of a piano at the same time , can be a clashing and harsh sound but also,  done well,  it can  express conflict or tension.

   
Simply put, Dissonance is a clashing of notes, associated with unpleasantness, whereas  Consonance is a harmony, associated with sweetness + pleasantness.

For the purposes of being on the same page when we talk about music for a creative media project I don't think it's necessary to go into the specifics of what notes sound good together to create consonance and what notes clash to create dissonance, you know it when you hear it. 

Consonance, in general, refers to a pleasant sound, something that is comfortable to your ears. Dissonance, on the other hand, refers to tension and instability, and also you get the sense that the music needs to go somewhere to be resolved back to consonance. 
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​Can you come up with any examples of dissonance in music?