Musical eras are distinguished by their systematic handling of sensory dissonance

Evidence

Sensory consonance and dissonance provide the foundation to understanding the structure of melodies and harmonies in music. Different musical styles can be characterized based on their tendency to involve dissonance. For example, choral works from the Renaissance era hardly ever have any dissonant chords; classical music uses dissonance to build tension, which is released in consonant chords; and Jazz music basically avoids consonant chords completely. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1299

Categorization

• CANDY: A neat, compact way to characterize an entire musical style by its dissonance policy.