Based on Sethares (2010) model to analyse the dissonant level between intervals, can also be expanded to measure the dissonant level of chords. In today's case, triadic chords, I calculated the common triads and 7th chords for comparison. Calculating the dissonant level of a chord is the sum of all the intervals in a chord (pic below). The same concept of calculating the dissonant of a note with harmonic partials.
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Illustration of calculating a chord
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Here is the calculation of the chords commonly used and sorted by the level of dissonance. The minor triad has a low dissonant level than the major. It is due to the note of the major 3rd interval is higher than the minor 3rd one. According to the equal-loudness contour, our ears are more sensitive to the higher pitch, thus, we perceive a louder tone and more dissonant. If we disregard the loudness factor of the pitch, the major and minor triad is composed with the same intervals, major 3rd, minor 3rd and perfect 5th, both of them should produce the same level of dissonance.
Chord | Notes | Dissonant |
Minor triad | C4 | Eb4 | G4 | C4 | 29.85773182 |
Major triad | C4 | E4 | G4 | C4 | 31.97616471 |
Minor seventh | C4 | Eb4 | G4 | Bb4 | 35.22296816 |
Major seventh | C4 | E4 | G4 | B4 | 40.35804472 |
Dominant seventh | C4 | E4 | G4 | Bb4 | 40.55303597 |
Augmented triad | C4 | E4 | G#4 | C4 | 41.75415674 |
Half-diminished seventh | C4 | Eb4 | Gb4 | Bb4 | 42.39034597 |
diminished triad | C4 | Eb4 | Gb4 | C4 | 42.63317171 |
Augmented major seventh | C4 | E4 | G#4 | B4 | 46.12333161 |
Diminished seventh | C4 | Eb4 | Gb4 | Bbb | 46.34417635 |
Major seventh flat five | C4 | E4 | Gb4 | B4 | 47.4465677 |
Minor major seventh | C4 | Eb4 | G4 | B4 | 50.60406598 |
Augmented seventh | C4 | E4 | G#4 | Bb4 | 51.01518015 |
Dominant seventh flat five | C4 | E4 | Gb4 | Bb4 | 51.55220353 |
Diminished major seventh | C4 | Eb4 | Gb4 | B4 | 53.86079921 |
This recalls the musical set theory, in the prime form, in its most compact form which sorts the interval from the narrowest of a type of chord. Major and minor are treated as the same. The calculation is very applicable to the set theory, linking the interval vector to the dissonant model. The interval class can be a scoreboard, each occurrence of an interval adds up the dissonant level, and different interval adds up to a different degree.
The next step, it will be more all-rounded if it is considered all types of inversion.
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