Comment by yqx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yqx | Hacker News Reader

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Surprisingly, what makes tones sound consonant is a matter of controversy in music perception research. The ratio between fundamental frequencies theory is most easily debunked: if that were true, equal temperament tuning would sound unbearable, but the over-tone matching theory is not confirmed either thus far.

In fact, here are two recent studies that suggest life-time exposure plays a significant role in the perception of consonance. If that's true your own judgement of consonance of two sounds is not a good evaluation of a theory of consonance, because that judgement may be shaped by your cultural exposure.

Indifference to dissonance in native Amazonians reveals cultural variation in music perception. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature18635 pdf: http://mcdermottlab.mit.edu/papers/McDermott_etal_2016_conso...

Universal and Non-universal Features of Musical Pitch Perception Revealed by Singing. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09609... (paywalled but sci-hub is your friend)

> The ratio between fundamental frequencies theory is most easily debunked: if that were true, equal temperament tuning would sound unbearable, but the over-tone matching theory is not confirmed either thus far.

Strong disagree there. EDO results in pure 4ths and 5ths. And I’m not sure how you can separate ratio of fundamentals from overtone consonance. And I’m not sure how you can separate “pleasing” from culture/upbringing, or why anyone would ever think that you could. It’s immediately evident by different people having different tastes. I appreciate the research, but I don’t think any of this is at all surprising.

That some properties of “consonance” are shared between cultures seems unsurprising, too, since the sounds everyone is exposed to will follow the same underlying acoustic properties. You can’t form words without listening to the overtones above your fundamental frequency, and forming resonance creates a notable body experiences, so those ratios are going to play an important role in most cultures as a matter of course.

> And I’m not sure how you can separate “pleasing” from culture/upbringing, or why anyone would ever think that you could.

Yeah, this still blows my mind how many people try to prove that "all humans" like a certain musical trope. Nobody would ever do this with a film.

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