The age-old search for an understanding of “consonance” has been hobbled from the beginning by the expectation that a silver bullet can be found. In this section from a book-in-progress, the historical searches are analyzed for their failings and a new approach is suggested based on observing the effects of tonal sounds within the context of prenatal exposure to the maternal voice. The experience of consonance is then attributed not to a single measureable property but rather to a set of six invariant properties all of which are derived from the human voice. Consonance is seen to be the outcome of a well-constructed recipe of these ingredients, and the weakness or absence of any or several of these elements is a contributor to dissonance.