Dissonant tones sound fine to people not raised on Western music

Post by eyelidlessness » Sun, Jul 17, 2016, 5:39 AM UTC

weinzierl wrote: post #37

Quote from the arstechnica article: > This suggests that preference for consonance over dissonance isn’t baked into universal human auditory processing, but is rather something we develop by being exposed to certain kinds of frequency relationships in the music that we hear. No, that is not a conclusion that can be drawn from the experiment and not the conclusion the paper draws. Quote from the paper: > The results i…

Post by solidsnack9000 » Sun, Jul 17, 2016, 10:38 AM UTC

eyelidlessness wrote: post #71

weinzierl wrote: post #37

Quote from the arstechnica article: > This suggests that preference for consonance over dissonance isn’t baked into universal human auditory processing, but is rather something we develop by being exposed to certain kinds of frequency relationships in the music that we hear. No, that is not a conclusion that can be drawn from the experiment and not the conclusion the paper draws. Quote from the paper: > The results i…

> That they have no harmony does not mean that preference for consonance over dissonance isn’t baked into universal human auditory processing because if they would develop harmony they might end up with the same preferences we have because we share the same human auditory processing. Or they might develop the same preferences because they're exposed to the same stimuli. Or they might not develop the same preferences…

Post by gardano » Sun, Jul 17, 2016, 11:19 AM UTC

mrob wrote: post #49

twelvechairs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no evidence that the human brain contains any hardware for pitch ratio detection. Consonance of simple ratios is a result of a simpler underlying rule, My reading of your link is that it doesnt argue against pitch ratios being fundamental - what it does do is say that ratios are not only happening in chords but also in the sound of a single note, in different ways for different instruments. This is very interesting…

The most fundamental aspect of dissonance is the empirically measured Plomp and Levelt curve. This is approximated as: d(x)=e^(-3.5x)-e^(-5.75x), where x is the difference in frequency between two pure sine tones. (see http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/paperspdf/consonance.pdf ) If we decompose sounds into sine waves, and sum the values on the Plomp and Levelt curve for all the pairs of sines, weighted by amplitude, then…

Post by pYQAJ6Zm » Sun, Jul 17, 2016, 11:36 AM UTC

gardano wrote: post #24

Sylos wrote: post #22

I would be interested in their reaction to two notes being played which are just slightly out of tune. Because it definitely seems like something which can be trained - professional musicians often have a pain-like reaction to it, while your Average Joe just notices that it sounds bad. But at the same time, your Average Joe still notices that it sounds bad, and yeah, just like with dissonances, it's hard to imagine s…

Take a gander at an actual 17th century composer playing with that idea in a most audacious way [0]. The section of the piece I'm referring to begins around 3:26. The idea seems to be, keys that are foreign to the piece should sound dissonant. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbrrMtWICs4

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 17, 2016, 11:40 AM UTC

Sylos wrote: post #22

I would be interested in their reaction to two notes being played which are just slightly out of tune. Because it definitely seems like something which can be trained - professional musicians often have a pain-like reaction to it, while your Average Joe just notices that it sounds bad. But at the same time, your Average Joe still notices that it sounds bad, and yeah, just like with dissonances, it's hard to imagine s…