Usage examples (33)

• Soaring, dissonant noises begin each song, forming a solid backbone for pretty, tinkling guitars and grinding swirls of feedback.
• Not doing well results in dissonant silence or an intentionally dissonant interruption.
• Thus, any music that doesn't manifest a recognizable emotion (by implication at least, all of "dissonant" modernist music) couldn't be music.
• It's asinine that The New York Times describes Esther as "dissonant," negatively, as if in sympathy with those critizing the decision to stage the work.