Suspensions and dissonance treatment

A suspension delays one voice while the harmony moves on beneath it.

Dissonance in the strict style is not an event but a procedure with three stations: the tone enters as a consonance (the preparation), is held while the other voice moves so that it becomes dissonant on the strong beat (the suspension proper), and falls one step to a consonance on the following weak beat (the resolution).

A voice prepared as a consonance is held while the bass steps down beneath it, striking a seventh above the new bass on the strong beat and falling one step to the sixth.

A tone prepared as a consonance is held while the bass moves so that it strikes a ninth above the new bass on the strong beat, then falls one step to the octave.

The suspension turned upside down: here the bass is the voice that holds.

Because a resolution is a consonance, it can serve as the preparation of the next suspension: over a bass descending by step, each 7–6 resolution becomes the seventh against the next bass note, and the device renews itself for as long as the bass keeps walking.

A dissonance may connect two consonances by step, entering and leaving in the same direction, provided it falls on the weak part of the beat or bar: the passing tone.

A voice may step off a consonance to the tone above or below and return, sounding the dissonance on the weak beat: the neighbor tone.

A voice sounds its next tone early, on the weak part of the beat, before the harmony it belongs to arrives.

A bass tone — almost always the tonic or the dominant — is sustained while the upper voices move through harmonies by turns consonant and dissonant against it.