Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Dissonance & Resolution

The last two days in piano I've tried to teach a piano student or two about dissonance and resolution. You know, dissonance: the part of music that seems to clash and not make sense--especially when you are playing it slowly. I tell my students that that is a "dissonant" part of the music; it may not sound good at that particular moment, but if you look ahead you see where the chord progression is going, and it will all make sense eventually. Sometimes we just need to look ahead to the point of "resolution," where the music resolves and it doesn't clash anymore.

God reminded me of a spiritual application I can draw from this. Sometimes God gives us trials in life, where the "bad things" tend to happen--the "dissonant" parts of life. In the middle of it we can wonder why God is allowing this bad thing to happen. But He knows the big picture. He can see where it's going. And he promises that He will work out all things for good, that we will become more like Christ (Rom. 8:28-29).

"For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:11