Tension and Release is an often used term for analyzing music, to describe how music keeps the interest of a listener. In Western tonal music, ranging from European classical music to modern pop, tension is often thought to derive from the dominant chord. Release is said to occur when the music then reaches the
tonicThe tonic is the first note of a musical scale in the tonal method of musical composition. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord. More generally, the tonic is the pitch upon which all other pitches of a piece are hierarchically referenced...
chord or "one chord" based from the first scale degree of the key.
In atonal music or improvised music, such as
free jazzFree jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s.Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
or
jam bandJam bands are musical groups whose albums and live performances relate to a fan culture that originated with the 1960s group Grateful Dead and continued in the 1990s with Phish and similar bands...
music, harmonic progressions are not necessarily recognizable, but audiences still often perceive suspense and resolution, closely related to the concepts of tension and release, respectively.
Seen in terms of its phenomenology for the musician performing an
improvisationImprovisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
, this experience can be attributed to different temporal relationships between a musician's cognitive perception of the notes played and the physical sounds from the instrument.
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Tension and Release is an often used term for analyzing music, to describe how music keeps the interest of a listener. In Western tonal music, ranging from European classical music to modern pop, tension is often thought to derive from the dominant chord. Release is said to occur when the music then reaches the
tonicThe tonic is the first note of a musical scale in the tonal method of musical composition. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord. More generally, the tonic is the pitch upon which all other pitches of a piece are hierarchically referenced...
chord or "one chord" based from the first scale degree of the key.
In atonal music or improvised music, such as
free jazzFree jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s.Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
or
jam bandJam bands are musical groups whose albums and live performances relate to a fan culture that originated with the 1960s group Grateful Dead and continued in the 1990s with Phish and similar bands...
music, harmonic progressions are not necessarily recognizable, but audiences still often perceive suspense and resolution, closely related to the concepts of tension and release, respectively.
Seen in terms of its phenomenology for the musician performing an
improvisationImprovisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
, this experience can be attributed to different temporal relationships between a musician's cognitive perception of the notes played and the physical sounds from the instrument. If the musician is internally choosing the notes to be played a moment before each note is actually played, this tends to involve an active assertion of the will on the course of musical choices and will often be perceived as a kind of tension. By contrast, if a musician takes a less active role in choosing new notes, but simply repeats the same pattern while effectively only listening to the sounds after they are played, this can create a sensation of release. Ben Vigoda of the band
The Mustn't GrumbleThe Mustn't Grumble is a relatively new American musical group from the Boston, Massachusetts area formed in 2004, by charter members guitarist Ben Vigoda, trumpeteer Shawn Hershey, and bassoonist Stephanie Holmes...
has called these two states "make it" and "let it," respectively.
Music which fails to return to the tonic is frequently called, "Negotase Respute", in reference to the 18th Century Russian Composer who would frequently shift keys without resolving the tension he created. His music would ultimately return to the root key and resolve the tonic, which was a rewarding musical experience. However, frequently the listener would lose interest before this climatic finish.