Reply To: The Challenges of Horror and Dissonance
In my twenties I was much more tolerant when it came to dissonant music. Much later to my surprise I realized how dissonant some music pieces actually were that I used to enjoy a lot in my youth.
Still I find dissonance ok for certain effects in film music. But it also can be too much. Talking about Chris Young, that is what I thought, when I checked out his score of “Pranks”. If I have a delicious tonal horror score with some sprinkles of dissonance like JNH’s The Village, that is the degree that I can still enjoy.
Apart from that it always depends if there is something actually interesting happening in the music, tonal or dissonant or not.
For those interested in 20th century orchestral music avoiding dissonance I strongly recommend to listen to the works of Ruth Gipps. But that’s not film music.