Are our interpretation of musical tones innate or learned?

[The Jack]

So you're watching a film and the music of the scene tries to give you an unsettling suspense, make a character seem more heroic, or assure you that the current part is meant to be comedic, cue tears... whatever.


Do we learn what this music is and associate it with feelings or is there some biological imperative that makes sounds resonate with us? Fast tempos strike me as natural, but what's Erie or heroic...?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

It's a mixture I figure. But generally the ones that get the strongest response will have the biggest innate basis.

Take creepy sounds, the spine chilling almost nails down a chalkboard response to certain tones. I don't know where it comes from, what we had to be scared off that makes that kind of sounds, it might even just be a physiological response, a frequency that unpleasantly resonates somewhere, but it's definitely not learned or not learned only.

Other ones like heroic probably have more of a cultural component. There are parts of it that get innate responses, like the tempo of marching music. Almost all modern pop music is, as it would be called in the western classical tradition, marching music. Two beats per second or up to about 1/6 slower, build up in multiples of two and usually four beats. It's music you can walk to. We humans find that very pleasing for some reason. But because we can walk to it the same basic setup also got used in a lot of military music. Add some snaredrums and some brass instruments or male vocalists and the music starts reminding us of the military. And while the hard taps of the snare drum and the low sounds of male vocalists in themselves get a sort of "aggressive" response, our reaction to the complete package is probably for a large part learned. The two complement each other, a learned reaction to a combination of innate building blocks that together would already have pushed us in the same general direction.

That would be my take on it anyway.

This could actually be cool to test. Design music that combines elements in unconventional ways. Have a military march song sang by high pitched angel voiced women and see how people react to it. (In fact, someone has to have thought of something like that before...)

[jayem]

There's definitely a theory that each generation takes the previous generations edgy music and takes that as it's new normal (so then to get the unexpected/dramatic you have to go a step higher). So at one point polyphony was grating, then (3rd&5th) harmonics, then the odd harmonics, then ...

And there are highly diverging musical scales, which come 'naturally'

I guess both of these are passively learned?

[georgie_leech]

Y'all need some Vihart.


https://youtu.be/i_0DXxNeaQ0

While the specifics vary from culture to culture, a lot of why music evokes specific emotions comes down to the chords and harmonies used. While taste is something that isn't innate, whether certain tones sound happier or stronger or sadder or creepier is pretty universal

[Brother Oni]

There's a World Science Festival talk that you may be interested in: Notes and Neurons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0kCUss0g9Q).

Some of the concepts are neatly encapsulated in a quick demonstration by Bobby McFerrin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk).

[BannedInSchool]

I would like it if games didn't sneak sounds into their music or effects that mimicked hard drives or fans failing and about to explode. :smallwink:

*eeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEE*