Original in Spanish: La consonancia musical es cultural
Turns out a guy called Josh McDermott demonstrated that the taste for consonant (or dissonant) musical intervals IS CULTURAL.
The guy went around asking a very isolated tribe in Bolivia which chords they liked best and it turned out their favourites look nothing like ours. Now I want to hear whether that people’s music sounds to me like a cat in the process of being murdered, the way the music I like must sound to them.
From the little I know about harmonics from physics (waves, basically) I assumed the things that sounded good to us had a “mathematical basis”. Looks like it doesn’t have to be that way.
Maybe the same happens with colours.
Come to think of it, it certainly happens with composition: people who write in different directions walk their eyes through images in different directions.
I’ll also say I’m surprised at the level of navel-gazing I must have been doing to never even question that thing about music. What else must I be getting this wrong? I loved having that blindfold removed.
Gracias Jaime Altozano, your Musihacks course is great.
Related: Jaime Altozano, Musihacks
(Facebook, 2022-07-20)