Talk:Minor seventh

Dissonance

Articles on intervals should contain information about their consonance and dissonance. Hyacinth 07:40, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I like the revision a little better. The previous statement I found odd, speaking of "most dissonant" after three other intervals, when there are only twelve to begin with. However, it was really the first interval admitted as an extension to triadic harmony (Claudio Monteverdi caused a big stir by doing this, as I recall), and was used extensively in this way thereafter in Baroque and Classical music. Harmonically, it's also the next step in the harmonic series after that which admits thirds. In Blues music (and Armenian ethnic music, for example) it's treated plainly as a consonance.

What I'm trying to say is that dissonance is really contextual. Unless you're limiting discussion of the intervals to just intonation (where a mathematical model can be strong enough to assert some amount of universality), there's not really a good way to describe this interval's consonance or dissonance in a concise manner. Rainwarrior 18:45, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The article seems a little off, on the topic of dissonance.

'but considerably less dissonant than the minor second and major seventh.'

I really don't think a minor seventh is LESS dissonant than a major seventh. A major seventh chord afterall still sounds major and happyish, which generally corresponds with consonance. Which is in line with the general principle that "a half-tone down" from a tone "is somewhat consonant" compared to a full step down, which is why the fourth is avoided during a major chord, and why some people have proposed the lydian mode as a theoretical replacement of the major/ionian scale (because the fourth is only a half-step down from the fifth, instead of a full whole tone down). 69.86.245.104 (talk) 22:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Added sourced material and removed latest version: "The minor seventh is considered a mildly dissonant interval, more dissonant than the consonant thirds and sixths, but considerably less dissonant than the dissonant minor second and major seventh." Hyacinth (talk) 04:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Explanation?

Could someone explain (in the article!) what the following means:

"A minor seventh is the smaller of two commonly occurring musical intervals that span seven diatonic scale degrees."

I understand roughly what major and minor sevenths are, but I don't understand what "span seven diatonic scale degrees" means here. I thought at first that it just meant seven notes in the scale, but that doesn't make sense because a "span of seven degrees" is then a single specific span that can result in only one note (namely the major seventh), not two as is claimed. Clarification is needed.

I realise I'm not explaining this in the article, but I'm feeling too lazy for that right now, so it's this or nothing from me: Consider the C major scale. If you take the seven note span from C to B, say, you have a major seventh. But if you take the seven note span from G to F, say, you have a smaller interval, and this interval is a minor seventh. So that's what the article means. How it's best clarified, I don't know. --Camembert 14:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The sidebar that counts the semitones (11) clarifies the "distance" in more concrete terms. Musicians learn to count in staff positions, which makes no sense to anyone who thinks that the best way to measure a distance is in equal steps -- whether semitone steps are really equal, and in what sense, is a whole nother can o' worms best left unopened unless you know what a logarithm is (and even so). But maybe an encyclopedia should open up a path of knowledge to those who have not been initiated in the arcane ways of musical terminology? It may be useful to note that there are three seventh-chords in common use that all span 11 semitones. These are the major-minor seventh, the minor seventh, and the half-diminished seventh. The differences are in the two tones in between these extremes. The major-minor has a major triad, the minor seventh has a minor triad, and the half-diminished seventh has a diminished triad. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:E41B:A29F:A975:EE5F (talk) 09:06, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Additional citations

Why, what, where, and how does this article need additional citations for verification? Hyacinth (talk) 13:28, 7 December 2010 (UTC)