

Why dissonant music strikes the wrong chord in the brain - ananyob
http://www.nature.com/news/why-dissonant-music-strikes-the-wrong-chord-in-the-brain-1.11791

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gjm11
I think the hypothesis described here is pretty much refuted by the work of
William Sethares (<http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/>), who finds that severely
non-harmonic intervals can sound just fine when played with (synthetic)
instruments whose overtones are suitably non-harmonic, and that using such
instruments can make nice harmonic intervals sound just as nasty as severely
non-harmonic ones do on conventional instruments with harmonic spectra.

There's a slightly convincing example at
<http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/mp3s/challoct.mp3> \-- what you hear there is
two successive sequences of (note A, note B, chord A+B) where B is an octave
above A in the first case and about 1.07 octaves -- an octave and 0.8 of a
semitone -- in the second. The instrument has a weird spectrum that makes the
second A+B sound better than the first -- but it's weird enough that, to me at
least, even the individual notes sound really odd.

A better example:
[http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/%7Esethares/mp3s/tenfingersX.mp...](http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/%7Esethares/mp3s/tenfingersX.mp3)
is a piece in "10-tone equal temperament", in which notoriously almost all
chords sound dreadful with normal instruments.
<http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/mp3s/Ten_Fingers.mp3> is the exact same notes,
but played on an instrument with a spectrum designed not to sound horrible in
10-tet.

~~~
enqk
Norman D. Cook has some very nice papers about harmony and tri-chords that
make the case that intervals are not what matters when it comes to
characterizing more complex harmonies:

<http://www.res.kutc.kansai-u.ac.jp/~cook/>

------
rodelrod
I'm surprised at the lack of understanding of the music phenomenon surfacing
in this article. Is this the current state of cognitive psychology?

Complex mathematical relations in harmonics induce more tension than simple
ones. We've known this at least since Pythagoras. Schoenberg knew this
perfectly well -- he published the bible for the theory of tonal harmony --
and never argued against it, as is claimed in this article. What he did claim
was that our ears gradually grow used to the common dissonances which start to
lose the tension potential and to be heard as "colors" [EDIT: hence one of his
first atonal works, "Farben"]. This is what he calls the "emancipation of
dissonance". Basically, we have to find the "edge" in more and more complex
mathematical relations.

[EDIT: further, he thought this race for complexity was doomed and exhausted
and we should let fully emancipated dissonance live a life of its own, not
trying to build up and release tension; this opened a wealth of musical
possibilities while alienating a good part of the audience]

Pure major chords sound more "pleasant" in a pepsi-challenge type of study. So
does pure sugar in a taste study. That doesn't mean the perfect meal is a pile
of sugar cubes.

~~~
jberryman
Just wanted to add: Schoenberg's historical view of western music was one of a
sort of slow "climb" up the overtone series, from early music utilizing almost
exclusively perfect harmonies, to modern (in the west) compositions that use
quarter tones, etc.

> Pure major chords sound more "pleasant" in a pepsi-challenge type of study.
> So does pure sugar in a taste study. That doesn't mean the perfect meal is a
> pile of sugar cubes.

Love this.

~~~
microtherion
One example of this "climb" is Wagner, who was found to be excessively
dissonant by many contemporary listeners. Nowadays, I think even listeners
with very conservative tastes in music don't consider Wagner all that
dissonant.

------
jtheory
Hmph. Read through to the end, and even the paper's co-author agrees nothing
was really proven, and learning is quite likely still a major factor in what
we prefer to hear.

There's also no discussion of cultures whose traditional music _focuses_ on
creating audible beating, like gamelan. There's a ton of audible beating, it's
completely intentional and part of the sound, and even if you've grown up
listening to music with a lower normal level of dissonance the sound can grow
on you.

It's also worth mentioning that highly consonant music is pretty lifeless --
even in the world of western music, the drive and power of a piece comes in
tension and release.

~~~
ananyob
He doesn't say nothing was really proven - he just says that they didn't
establish whether this dislike of dissonance was innate or not. That wasn't
what the experiment was about. It was to find what caused the dislike - and
they ruled out 'beating' and propose it's harmonicity. It's also not beating
per se which people find unpleasant but rapid beating -roughness. Does Gamelan
try to produce 'roughness'-ie rapid beating - or just beating - which I could
imagine would be quite cool.

~~~
jtheory
Fair enough, and I shouldn't just knock it without even reading carefully.
It's frustrating sometimes to see discussions like these that seem to
completely ignore the very wide variety of sounds that people find pleasant.
I've perhaps read too many claims that "music is a universal language" when it
far from that.

You should search out some recordings; I played in a gamelan ensemble for a
while and quite enjoyed it. The sound is cool, and the interlocking rhythms do
neat things in your head. :)

The beats -- I'm not sure if they're rapid enough to qualify as "roughness" or
not; I've never encountered that term before, but they're fairly rapid and
give a shimmering effect.

------
colanderman
_Then the researchers tested how both groups felt about beating. They found
that the amusics could hear it and disliked it about as much as the control
group._

followed by:

 _Co-author Josh McDermott at New York University reported previously that
harmonicity seems more important than beating for dissonance aversion in
normal hearers. In the new paper he and his colleagues argue that the lack of
sensitivity both to harmonicity and dissonance in amusics now adds to that
case._

Am I thick? These paragraphs seem to directly contradict each other (1st says
amusics are sensitive to dissonance, 2nd says they are not).

~~~
microtherion
beating != dissonance.

------
dietrichepp
> “Rock bands often deliberately introduce roughness and dissonance into their
> sounds, much to the delight of their audiences”, she says.

From reading this, you might think that this trick was invented in the
mid-20th century.

~~~
microtherion
Besides, rock tends to be harmonically quite conservative, compared to
classical music and jazz.

The reason something like the intro to Jimi Hendrix' "Purple Haze" stands out
is that tritones are very much the exception rather the rule in rock.

------
praptak
This is a bit disappointing. If I understand correctly they only gathered some
evidence that it is not due to beating (interference.) So we still don't even
know whether it's prewired or learned. The fact that you can learn to like
dissonance tells us little - you can also learn to like some kinds of bitter
taste and dislike for bitter is prewired.

~~~
ananyob
That's underselling it a bit, I think? They've ruled out the dominant
hypothesis with their experiment (beating/roughness) and propose another -
harmony of overtones. Quite clever to do the experiment with people with
amusia. Wonder if this has anything to say about the old CD versus vinyl
debate? Or was that nonsense anyway?

~~~
pygy_
The beating/roughness couldn't have explained the dissonance of the tritone (C
to F# for example).

The harmony of overtones doesn't come as a surprise for people familiar with
sound synthesis, but I suppose that it had never been rigorously tested...

------
sp332
This short video is a fascinating explanation of how sound interacts with our
ears, and why chords sound good. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_0DXxNeaQ0>

