On finding warmth in the dissonance

I snagged a five-minute window to play some Rachmaninoff this morning.  Silas was lounging on the futon by my side, and this was his quiet monologue:

"This is beautiful music."
[pause]
"God is beautiful."
[pause]
"God is very tall."
[pause]
"We can't see God's face."

I was moved that my playing would inspire theological wonderings in my three-year-old boy.   Mind you, his theological wonderings may well have been an excuse to get out of his morning chores, but I'm choosing to go with the whole 'creating space for art invites wonder and reflection' theme.  It was a good moment, and one I wanted to capture.

I had a mentor/professor in university who would coach me to find 'the warmth in the dissonance.'  She was encouraging me to voice my chords carefully, bringing out the tones that would best compliment my fellow musician's line.  It was a learning process for me, because it involved training my eye and my ear to not only tolerate but to actively seek out dissonance and use it to add dimension and warmth to the sound.  Dissonance was not simply something to be avoided, nor was it a necessary, evil stepping-stone on the way to the perfect cadence.  And in this process, my jaw dropped and I came to realize how much beauty I'd been missing by equating dissonance with ugliness.

Rachmaninoff.  I deeply love his music for many reasons, but I think my primary reason for loving Rachmaninoff is his masterful handling of dissonance and resolution.  He writes incredibly lush harmonies that build in tension, but it's the chords that are most dissonant that I find the most beautiful, those chords that are full of suspensions, carrying notes of where the music has been into where the music is and where it is going.

When I started this post, I was hoping to offer a neat-ish explanation of how I'm finding warmth in my current dissonance, but in reality I feel sick to my stomach and my hands are shaking.   I feel a wall inside that's both protective (numbing) and fortifying (trying to stave off the fatigue and emotions).  In this moment, the discord is clanging.