Is the human response to music learned or innate - can anyone answer this question?

[ScreamingValenta]

A bit random, I know, but I was thinking about this as I was listening to the radio today.

Why is it that certain combinations of musical notes are regarded as pleasing and harmonious, and others as cacophonous or jarring?

Is this something that we learn as humans, or is it an innate response with a scientific explanation?

I personally think that A response is innate... I work with children who have the most profound disabilities (can't walk, talk , see, eat etc) and yet most of them show a response to music.
However I do think that what an individual find pleasing is at least partly cultural.. you only have to contrast 'Western' music styles to say, India, or Chinese to hear that in different cultural and geographical locations, very different harmonies and chord progressions are considered beautiful.

It's a really interesting question !

Yes, that's a good point about cultural difference in musical styles. That would suggest at least partially a learned element.

It's really good to hear that music can be a way of reaching people who are profoundly disabled and can't experience many other pleasures.

If you had a person who'd never heard music in any form, and exposed them respectively to someone hitting random keys on the piano and then a Beethoven symphony, would they recognise that one was 'better' than the other?

I could actually try that out at work as an experiment... play some beautiful classical orchestral music... check responses, and then practise my latest guitar piece ( currently painful!!!) and see if there is a difference!

A lot of Western music from classical through to pop has its roots in human relationship with horses. We spent hundreds of years listening to their hooves and it influenced how music was written. It is becoming more dilute now with the influence and fusion of music from other regions.

I’m pretty sure there was an article last year saying that only some people have a physiological response of ‘hair standing on end’ or tingling at the back of the neck when hearing music, and get greater pleasure from music.

www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zx6sfg8 BBC info on spine tingling music

One of the most ancient questions, to which we there is no straightforward answer! In Western cultures (since at least the time of Pythagoras) there has long been an idea that beauty in music has its roots in mathematics. Modern science has identified the frequencies in musical notes, and found that people respond best to note combinations which are “harmonic” (i.e. the frequencies are In the same harmonic “family”, such as all multiples of 100 hertz).

Complicating this is the human experience that beauty in a piece of music (as opposed to a single chord) is not all about harmony and mathematical perfection - we respond to dissonance followed by resolution, and to rhythmic variations, key changes and so on. We respond emotionally to music which tells a story, but the ingredients we respond to differ across time and place and culture. To a Western ear music tends (as a huge generalisation) to feel more uplifting in a major key and sadder in a minor key, but I don’t think that association holds in other musical traditions.

The neurological response is also different across individuals, depending on whether they have been trained as musicians, according to brain scan studies. The late Oliver Sacks wrote very beautifully on the subject of music from a neurological point of view.

One of the most gifted musicians I know (a concert pianist and choral conductor) is brilliant at demonstrating what makes music great rather than good. He will play the beginning of a musical figure and then say “the obvious progression would have been this but the genius of Haydn is that he included the minor 7th to get this ”.

Your friend needs to be invited to do a Ted Talk. I would LOVE to hear that.

Yes he would be a great person for a Ted Talk. He has done at least a couple of similar (commissioned) videos but I don’t think they are in the public domain.

Really interesting responses, thank you. I hadn't heard about the influence of horses, but there is something very rhythmic and soothing about the sound of a horse's trot - in the same way the sound of a train is soothing.

I have a spine-tingle response to some music but I'm fairly sure it's because of its associations and the memories it evokes, rather than the music in a pure sense.

It would be great to hear the examples Lark's friend has demonstrated - I'd love to listen to a radio programme or podcast based on that idea. He should try to get it commissioned.

There is thought to be a link between those who get "chills" from music and those who experience a tingly sensation from ASMR. I definitely do, and have done since I was a small child.

Interesting thread, Op!

Not directly on point, but the Key Matters podcasts from Radio 4 may be of interest to some on this thread.