Perhaps this has already been a topic here, and perhaps it hasn't. I'm sure, though, that it is most likely that many or most of you have pondered the power of music. I have my own thoughts about it, but need to clarify them before I write them down here. Just to get this thread going though, I'd like to pose the initial question.

What is it about music that makes it so attractive to humans?

One of the most important unanswered evolutionary questions I might add. Haven't a clue myself.

I love Music!


What is it about music that makes it so attractive to humans?

Beethoven helps me:

Musik is der einzige unverkörperte Eingang in eine höhere Welt des Wissens, die wohl den Menschen umfasst, dass er aber sie nicht zu fassen vermag.

"Music is the only incorporeal entrance to a higher world of knowledge; this higher world of knowledge may be surrounding us, but we cannot grasp it." (There is a subtle play of words in German though.)

What is it about music that makes it so attractive to humans?Many things that act in concert. (Pun intended.)

Rhythm. We like to hear cadences that beat in time with our life processes. Heartbeat, breathing, walking pace. If necessary we work it the other way. We tap our feet or fingers, dance, or (for metalheads and punks) bob our heads up and down or jump up and down in time to music.

Harmony. The ratios of the frequencies of the notes in the harmonic scale are small integers. 4:5, 5:6, etc. The intervals that we find truly "harmonic" like thirds and fourths are even smaller ratios. 3:4, 2:3. Our brains find that simplicity pleasant because we can parse it.

Poetry. Sung music is poetry. Even before our music evolved pitch and harmony, it had poetry.

Counterpoint. Two melodies intertwining are interesting to us in the same way that needlework, horse races, and hunting are.

Tone. Pure tones (with few overtones) or more complex tones with harmonic overtones seem beautiful because they abstract elements out of nature.

Melody. Originally, I'd guess that we were trying to imitate birds. Then we found that although we can't make the rich tones they can, we can create much more complex music.

Music is a combination of many different things, each of which pleases us. And as is so often the case, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Setting poetry to a melody, adding harmony, tone, rhythm, and counterpoint is an overwhelming combination of pleasures.

Thank you for your responses, I found them to be thoughtful and interesting.

I believe it was Plato who said, "Music touches the very depths of the human soul."

Music, to me, is a very interesting, mysterious, powerful, gratifying and pleasureful aspect of humanity. While some are able to focus and concentrate while listening to music, I often find myself (lyrics or otherwise) distracted by music, analysing it, and losing myself in its complexity. It is interesting to note that while humans enjoy a wide genre of music, it is well documented that other animals gain or lose degrees of functionality when listening to different forms of music. For example, it has been found that cows that listen to classical music often usually produce more milk, and are healthier, while the adverse is true of those cows who often listen to heavy metal style music. Similarly, mice put into a maze while listening to classical music navigate themselves through the maze with much more ease, and a much higher success rate than those that listen to, again, heavy metal style music while in the maze.

I have read much that pertains to the opinion which RosaMagica holds. Many forms of music have great correlation to Sacred Geometry, which is a method of describing and understanding, as well as reaching into a "higher plane of existence." Crop Circles, which are often different forms of Sacred Geometric Shapes, can be translated into music of a highly spiritual kind.

Differing forms of music appeal to different personality types. I believe this to be for the reason that it offers a sense of security to the listener (a security that may not be real). Often, a false sense of security is offered by the more chaotic styles of music, since chaos is an opposition to order, and security. Yet, the sense is had since what it is actually the familiar that offers the secure sense, rather than the nature of the thing giving the sense. Therefore, the music which has negative effects on animals, the chaotic kind, probably also has a chaotic, a negative effect on the human listener as well, aligning itself with a person experiencing an inner chaos.

This would make sense, since, when compared with one another, there is an obvious rift between the order had in classical music as compared with heavy metal, which is at the opposite musical spectrum. Since most people are neither highly ordered, nor highly chaotic, the most popular form of music would be an intermediary, like pop rock, rap, or country.

There is another aspect of music that has significance with regards to the spiritual versus the physical (spiritual is more ordered than the physical). This other aspect has to do with constancy and inconstancy. Music with rhythm and beat are more appealing to the physical than to the spiritual, since the purely physical world is in a constant state of change, while the purely spiritual is in a state of constancy. This is why when one hears a "good beat" one is moved to dance to it. However, constant rhythm also has spiritual appeal, which is why some people often find themselves "lost in the beat."

The type of instrument used in music also has significance in this regard. Wind instruments, which usually play unbroken notes, are usually more appealing to the spiritual aspect of the person. While string instruments (excepting a violin, and similar), which need to be constantly re-stimulated (ie, a piano's keys must be pressed over and over again, as opposed to an organ, wind instrument, who's key needs only to be pressed and held) are more appealing to one's physical, inconstant nature. I believe this to be the reason that the Catholic Church once banned pianos from being played at Masses, as they were not "sacred instruments," that is, instruments that appealed to the spiritual.

However, no form of music has singular appeal. Every form has both spiritual appeal, and physical appeal, due to instrument used, construct of the musical piece, and lyrical uniformity and message.

Fraggle Rocker, you have presented wonderful food for thought. Your analysis of music is more practical and demonstrable. Your reasoning on rhythm is both strong, and in conjunct with my own, since it appeals to physical conditions that are part of human life. Your take on harmony is superb, since it recognizes the hunger for the human mind to break-down information and understand it, see it for what it is. Much pleasure is found in this. While your take on poetry isn't very revealing, it is good that you mention it. Poetry, originally, was a devise used to serve memory. As I see it, that priciple holds even today, though poetry has taken on different meaning. Poetry, in music, in it's original form (rhyme, and meter) helps one to remember the lyrics of a song.

To hurry things up, you are absolutely right, music is a combination of MANY different things. From mental pleasure of abstraction and analysis, to spiritual and physical appeals, even to the simple sense of familiarity and security, the attraction of music is wide-ranging and deeply felt. I feel that there may yet be levels of music not yet uncovered. If Plato is right, and music does reach the very depths of our souls, the the depth of music must be deep indeed, for the depth of the human soul is far from being known.

Music is rythm... rythm pulls at your soul... it guides you to understand feelings and emotions of others, and even lets you feel what they feel. Its a way to express and feel. Its art! Its made to vent anger, and love, and happiness.

Music 'resonates' with the human mind. Its true power comes in its ability to change brain waves (frquency amplitude, etc) and have a lasting effect on ones behaviour.


From the cotton candy, head bopping harmonics of the Beach Boys, to "alex's" beethoven, to that last song on black hawk down (if I could only remember the name!) music can completely manipulate emotions and warp rationality. Stanley Kubrick used this trick quite often, effectively, to wow the audience.

Its because of this power that music is so dangerous. Its almost like an opiate. On the train this morning, I saw this one moron twiddling his fingers on his knees and staring off into space for a full 20 minutes! He completely wasted all time allowing his brain waves to be taken hostage, when he could've spent the it relaxing his mind instead, maybe meditating and letting it take its own natural frequency from his immediate surroundings(highest form of art).

Most of the people who listen to excessive amounts of music couldn't write a decent song if their lives depended on it. Music is great, but its far to precious to be wrapped up in a uniform package and sold by the unit. Live concerts, bootlegs, or plain old jamming in the basement is the only way to go.

It's interesting how esp. at listening classical music, people tend to make stories to it, give it a subject (even though it does not have titles indicating of any subject, or is not program music like "Peter and the wolf" or "The carnival of animals").

I watched a film about the first performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony. The listeneres that were there made up stories of what they imagined while listening to the music, how they "could just see the running horses, the shining epolettes (sp.?), the sables" etc. Or, the ta-ta-ta--taaah in the Fifth Symphony is proverbially called "fate knocking on Beethoven's door".


I must say that I have a great dislike for such subject interpretations, for this making up stories to music. They may be creative and interesting as such, but I think that they put the music in the background.

I often listen to classical music, but rarely make up such stories; I can make them up, but I find them distracting.


***
Music is great, but its far to precious to be wrapped up in a uniform package and sold by the unit. Live concerts, bootlegs, or plain old jamming in the basement is the only way to go.

I don't play an instrument myself, but I have a good memory for music, that is, I will "photographically" memorize a piece after listening to it enough times. And after that, I "have it with" me.
I almost always have music playing in my head, it in a way tells me how I feel, what state I am in. It's my "emotional interface".

Me too, but not always by choice, and not always songs that reflect my mood. For example, if I'm sitting through a slow math lecture, I'll involuntarily break into something upbeat. If I'm in a really good mood, maybe something melancholy. Its an artificial escape from strong emotions.

FLOWingness....music flows. talking/thinking is more staccato...if we analogize it with modern physics....talk/thinking is 'particle' and music/singing/chanting is 'wave'........

Blues is an awesome example of the natural
spontanous ureg in people to flow....if in pain, flow. moanin is a start of flow...blocking moaning is exactly that...blocking. holding back from flow. so music helps the organism to flow, and therein is ecstasy....the more you openup to it

Me too, but not always by choice, and not always songs that reflect my mood.

I don't think that those pieces *ever* play in my head by choice -- unless I read about them or am asked, this is when I need to consciously remember them.


Its an artificial escape from strong emotions.

You think?
I can imagine that in an upsetting situation (I used to do that) I would choose certain songs contrary to my emotional state, sort of out of cynicism -- but this works mostly only with non-classical music (and I still sometimes do that). Classical music I don't play in my head by choice, or only if specifically desired so.
(Like right now, I have a part from the 4th mvt. from Beethoven's Third -- already the whole day, and it just runs on silently, in my head.)

Any theory of music that claims to be complete must be able to pass the Luxury Yacht Test.

If you succeeded in developing a complete theory of music, you would be able to use that theory to compose strong original music, which you could then sell, and use the proceeds to purchase a luxury yacht. Be suspicious of anyone claiming to completely understand what music is who does not own a luxury yacht. (And no, I do not own a luxury yacht. It follows that the theory revealed in my book is not complete. I claim only that it is plausible and that it explains more about music than anyone else's theories.)

The human brain is an information processing system.

An information processing system has four basic components: input, output, calculation and storage. Applying this framework to the analysis of music, music appears to represent the input. What kind of information is the output, and what does it mean? How is it calculated?

Music is a super-stimulus for the perception of musicality in speech.

Musicality is a perceived attribute of speech, which tells the listener important information about the speaker and the speech. Music is a super-stimulus for this perceived musicality, i.e. music is "speech" that has been contrived to have an unnaturally high level of musicality.

Each aspect of music is a super-stimulus for a corresponding aspect of the perception of musicality of speech.

By investigating each aspect of music, we can make an intelligent guess as to the nature of the cortical map for which the musical aspect is a super-stimulus, and then we can determine what the response of that same cortical map would be to speech, and finally we can determine what role the cortical map plays in the perception of ordinary speech.

"Normal" stimuli for specific aspects of speech perception may lack properties of corresponding musical super-stimuli.

Musical harmony consists of simultaneous pitch values, yet perception of simultaneous pitch values from multiple melodies has no relevance to speech perception (i.e. we almost always only listen to one person speaking at a time). The normal function of the cortical map that responds to consonant relationships between different notes occurring at the same time within harmonies and chords must be the perception of consonant relationships between pitch values occurring at different times within the same speech melody.

Normal speech melody is not constructed from musical notes selected from a musical scale. The normal function of the cortical map that responds to discontinuous musical melodies constructed from musical scales must be the perception of continuous speech melody.

The rhythm of speech is not as regular and structured as the rhythms of music. The normal function of the cortical maps that respond to the regular rhythms of music must be the perception of irregular speech rhythm.

Dance is an aspect of music.

In other words, dance is not just something which accompanies music, dance actually is music. Music is a super-stimulus for aspects of speech perception, but speech perception is not just the perception of sounds: it also includes perception of the speaker's movements such as facial expressions, body language and hand gestures. Dance can be identified as the super-stimulus for this component of speech perception.

There are at least five and possibly six symmetries of music.

These are:

* Pitch translation invariance
* Time translation invariance
* Time scaling invariance
* Amplitude scaling invariance
* Octave translation invariance
* Pitch reflection invariance

Each of these symmetries represents an invariance of some aspect of the perceived quality of music under the corresponding set of transformations.

For each symmetry we can ask "Why?" and "How?".

The first four symmetries are functional symmetries in that they satisfy a requirement for invariance of perception, i.e. for each symmetry in this group our perception of speech should be invariant under the set of transformations that define the symmetry. For example, perception of speech melody is invariant under pitch translation so that people with different frequency ranges can speak the same speech melodies, and have those melodies perceived as being the same. The last two are implementation symmetries which play an internal role in the perception of music. (For example see the next item on octave translation invariance.)

In some cases the "how" part of the question has an answer less trivial than one might assume at first. It turns out that we can identify components of speech perception from hypotheses about the existence cortical maps that respond to aspects of music, and these components reflect the need to achieve perception of speech melody invariant under pitch translation and time scaling.

Octave translation invariance is an implementation symmetry which facilitates the efficient subtraction of pitch values.

Octave translation invariance is the result of splitting the representation of pitch into a precise value modulo octaves and an imprecise absolute value. This split enables the more efficient representation and processing of pitch values, particularly when one pitch value must be "subtracted" from another to calculate interval size.

Our perception of relative pitch must be calibrated somehow.

This explains the importance of consonant intervals in music perception. Consonant intervals correspond to the intervals between the harmonic components of voiced sounds in human speech, and they provide a natural standard for calibrating the comparison of pitch intervals between different pairs of pitch values. Our accurate ability to calculate and compare pitch intervals enables the pitch translation invariant perception of speech melody.

Musicality corresponds to the occurrence of constant activity patterns in cortical maps.

The regularities of time, pitch and repetition in music cause the cortical maps responding to music to become divided up into active and inactive zones, where the division remains constant for all or part of a tune.

Constant activity patterns in the speaker's brain are echoed by similar constant activity patterns in the listener's brain.

Occurrence of constant activity patterns in the speaker's brain represents information about the internal mental state of the speaker. One consequence of the perception by the listener of constant activity patterns in the speaker's brain is a reinforcement of the listener's emotional reaction to what the speaker is saying. This accounts for the emotional effect of music.

Disclaimer: This was from a site that cannot find the link to.

It's easy, music makes you dance, dancin is seductive, puts you in the mood for luvvin. We all likes a bit o luvvin!

It's easy, music makes you dance, dancin is seductive, puts you in the mood for luvvin. We all likes a bit o luvvin!

I don't want any lovin, thanks anyway.

This would make sense, since, when compared with one another, there is an obvious rift between the order had in classical music as compared with heavy metal, which is at the opposite musical spectrum.Interesting point of view. Most people of my pre-metal generation criticize it precisely because it is too repetitive, too predictable, too simple. Until the progressive rock movement of the early 1970s provided new motifs that the early metal bands of the late 1960s picked up on, it seemed like two thirds of the heavy metal songs were twelve-bar blues -- quite possibly the most orderly, overused, moribund pattern of music ever beaten to death in America. Even today's infrared-metal hits (my term for any music such as Korn, etc., that requires a sub-woofer to reproduce more than half of the frequencies) are so straightforward that any garage band with a big bass amp can learn them quickly. The sheer brevity of the popular song makes it less complex. (The days of the seven-minute opus like Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird," much less the seventeen-minute multi-movement quasi-symphony like Nektar's "Recycled," are long gone.)On the train this morning, I saw this one moron twiddling his fingers on his knees and staring off into space for a full 20 minutes! He completely wasted all time allowing his brain waves to be taken hostage, when he could've spent the it relaxing his mind instead, maybe meditating and letting it take its own natural frequency from his immediate surroundings(highest form of art).I think you're being a little hard on music fans and a little strict in your definition of "relaxing." I usually put on music to help me fall asleep. More often than not it's something moderate by today's standards like Garbage, but sometimes I just feel like Metallica, Audioslave, Drain sth, or Type O Negative. Those tunes are familiar and comfortable to me and I fall asleep to them. Meditation is all about controlling the pattern of your thoughts. The way to do that varies from one person to another as much as anything else we humans do, because we are so complicated. I'm sure that "moron" on the train was having a perfectly fine time spacing out and forgetting about the crowded conditions on the train and the dreary job he was commuting toward and the debts that are piling up because the dreary job doesn't pay a decent wage. Music is a drug (and I'm speaking metaphorically, this isn't the Science Forum :)); it's psychoactive, can change your mood, and can even transport your mind away from its physical location. Frank Zappa said that music is the only true religion (and he wasn't speaking metaphorically) because it says it will make you feel better and it does.

Never forget that every new style of music and every composition that broke with tradition was cursed in its own time by people who felt that the only way to relax and enjoy life was the old way. "Bolero" was often booed. Opera was derided by many as deliberatly mediocre music for the proletarians by gifted composers who should have spent their time writing challenging music for the aristocrats. Ragtime was seriously expected to bring about the downfall of America, as was rock and roll fifty years later. There are still societies on earth that consider all music to be a moral corruptor.

Today's heavy metal is the next generation's Dixieland.

music helps me concentrate, i have been sitting at my computer with the heaphones blasting track after track into my ears for the last 5 hours, i dont know why but it help me take in information better, as well as better organise my thoughts.

its kind of like what a dream does, except im awake

We shouldn't actually care WHY music is good, that will only take dilute it's beauty.
If it sounds good, it sounds good.

I think music sounds good because everything is a kind of rythm. When we compose "random" music it "explains" something in the universe, it awakens special emotions and thoughts. This art, expression of our unconscious mind.

But we can also "convert" anything into music, like anger, sorrow, or anything, and the music then awakens these feelings and thoughts. This can be done with anything of course, not just music, but for example by painting or poetry. This is art, expression of our conscious mind.

Many topics have been posted here since the four years I've been here. I'm surely music has been posted before. From favorable bands, singers, etc.. to what the purpose of music is to the human psyche.

Music touches your subcounsious, the analitical mind does not comprehend music, till you see it written onn paper, however since most of us don't have that luxury, of even comprehending the symbols or what they may sound like. It is your subcouncsious that interprets the sound and rhythm.

The poetry in cohesion with music make you understand what it is being said, and wether you may or may not relate to its message.

I like all sorts of music. I've expanded my music horisons sorts in all directions, from the clasics, to hard rock, (fact is at this moment Santana-Samba-Pa-ti) playing in the background on my cd player. Music appeals to each of us differently "not all of us like the same music" There's nothing mystical about music, no matter how twisted theist may try and explain the "soul" of sound, and the appealing to one's inner most feelings through music. Music is just part of asthetic, each of us will interpret accordingly to our own psyche.

Godless.

did you know that there is a specific spot on your brain, separate from the spot you use to listen to music, that appreciates and really deeply enjoy the music?

now that's an interesting fact, hope I didn't mention this before

*did you know that there is a specific spot on your brain, separate from the spot you use to listen to music, that appreciates and really deeply enjoy the music?

Ya! basically that same spot is used to interpret abstract art.

Here's an interesting article on the psychology of music.
http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20000901-000029.xml

Godless.

why is this topic in philosophy forum and not some art forum i think
godless is both incoherent and illogical with his objective mind when
he even start threads but when he mentions the works of the brain
then he makes real sense because according to him science is philosophy
but i ask is philosophy science? care to discuss?

correction:my appologies godless i mistook this thread as yours,i am so sorry!

have you guys been to philosophyforums.com, i have,there is alot of literature of
philosophy there,hmmmm im impressed,they have philosophy!!!!!!!!
so sciforums i wanna see you come up with some philosophy that i can learn from
cause i will be leaving you if dont by going to philosophyforums.com to kick
some old/anccient ass there that have been stuck in shit

philosophyforums.com:
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth."
- Oscar Wilde
---------------------------------------------------------
maybe it is because he is shy!!!!!!
hahaha you're still so small (philosophyforums.com) when it comes to philosophy
you can never ban a true philosopher!!!!!!!!!!!
because you're the jokes of philosophy

Philosopher Philocrazy

come on guys dont let those assholes at philosophyforums.com think youre
not good, i am the best,and i am at sciforums not at philosophyforums.com their ass

Music touches your subconscious. The analytical mind does not comprehend music till you see it written on paper. However since most of us don't have that luxury, of even comprehending the symbols or what they may sound like, it is your subconscious that interprets the sound and rhythm.You've missed a very important faction of the musical community: the musicians themselves. Throughout history, most musicians didn't know how to read and write music. In fact, up until the past couple of centuries, most musicians -- like most people -- didn't know how to read and write anything. Since the explosion of popular music about 150 years ago, and certainly since the dawn of rock and roll fifty years ago with the proliferation of bands forever moored halfway between amateur and professional standing, it's certain that the majority of musicians still don't know how to read and write music, at least not easily enough to support much of an analytical process.

Simply learning how to play any instrument requires applying analytical skill to music. Knowing which keys, strings, holes, frets, stops, or valves produce particular notes and figuring out which combinations thereof sound harmonious is a highly analytical process. Whether this is done from sheet music, under the auspices of a teacher, or by trial and error, it engenders the kind of conscious understanding that you're talking about.

I can barely read music, enough to figure out a three-minute song in half an hour if I'm really determined. Written music plays essentially no role in my avocation for singing and playing it. Yet I understand scales, modalities, chords, tempos, harmonic structure, rhythm, counterpoint, dynamics, transposition, and much of the other things you're referring to, and can discuss them with other musicians as we consciously shape the sound of a song we're either creating or interpreting.

I have not the slightest doubt that musicians have been doing this since before there was written language, much less written music.

More to the point, you don't have to be a musician to understand this stuff without being able to read sheet music. Plenty of enthusiastic music fans are just as knowledgeable about modalities, chord progressions, and all the rest of it as we musicians are.

Anyone ever heard of the string theory? Music could have something to do with that, and why it effects us so much. String Theory, if im not mistaken, is a theory that would explain the entire universe and existence based on one thought of harmonic waves... that would explain why music would be connected to the very thing we are based upon.

RosaMagika
You think?
I can imagine that in an upsetting situation (I used to do that) I would choose certain songs contrary to my emotional state, sort of out of cynicism -- but this works mostly only with non-classical music (and I still sometimes do that). Classical music I don't play in my head by choice, or only if specifically desired so.
(Like right now, I have a part from the 4th mvt. from Beethoven's Third -- already the whole day, and it just runs on silently, in my head.)

Music is like a crutch, supporting a balanced state of mind, but preventing one from attaining that state under his own powers. (Whether or not you listen by choice.) Classical music tends to be less contrived and more natural, making it more of a 'gateway'.

Alot of good stuff here. However....

I think of moments when I have discovered a new song I love....and a particular part hits....and the hair on the back of my neck stands...and I feel a buzz of adrenaline and excitement....

I simply can't explain it and the explanations I have heard do not do it justice.

Was it pythagorus that first proposed music was a mathematical system? He was of course on to something. There is an order there for sure.

It is something that is intrinsic with the beauty of nature. But I can't quite put my finger on it. It is either too complex or too simple for me to grasp.

Was it Pythagorus that first proposed music was a mathematical system? He was of course on to something. There is an order there for sure.Music is a mathematical system. The ratios of the frequencies of vibration of the notes in the scale are small integers.

An octave is 2:1. A major fifth is 3:2. A major fourth is 4:3. A major third is 5:4. A minor third is 6:5. Even a major second is 9:8 and a minor second is 16:15.

The frequencies of the notes in hertz in a G major scale, about an octave and a half below the lowest note we can hear just to make the numbers easier to grasp intuitively, are:

24-27-30-32-36-40-45-48

(This is the lowest scale in which all the notes vibrate in integral hertz frequencies.)

If Pythagoras had an oscilloscope, he would have been the one to shout "Eureka" upon discovering this much math in his music. You could teach a couple of years of high school geometry with just these eight relatively small integers.

A 3-4-5 right triangle, the one everyone used to learn Pythagoras's own theorem, is merely three octaves below 24-32-40. It's the notes G-C-E: a C major chord!

Music of the spheres, hell. This is music of the triangles!

"A 3-4-5 right triangle, the one everyone used to learn Pythagoras's own theorem, is merely three octaves below 24-32-40. It's the notes G-C-E: a C major chord!"

These things always amaze me. Math is truly an amazing thing. Maybe the most amazing thing mankind has stumbled upon. It is the language of the universe.

So anyway, where does that leave us? Music affects us because it has an inherent order?

"A 3-4-5 right triangle, the one everyone used to learn Pythagoras's own theorem, is merely three octaves below 24-32-40. It's the notes G-C-E: a C major chord!" These things always amaze me. Math is truly an amazing thing. Maybe the most amazing thing mankind has stumbled upon. It is the language of the universe. So anyway, where does that leave us? Music affects us because it has an inherent order?I guess that's as good a way to put it as any. Two notes played together result in a harmonic resonance. On an oscilloscope you get a beautiful waveform that is the sum of two simple waves.

This is just my own theory, my way of explaining how this works when no one really knows how it works, but to use the same trite phrase again, it's as good a way to put it as any. What is amazing is that our brains have abstracted something out of this summation of two sine waves and identified it as something beautiful. Furthermore, it enables us to hear the two sine waves at separate (but very close) times, and sense that abstracted structure from memory when it doesn't even happen.

But wait, it gets better. (Worse?) I've described the G major scale up there, in what is called its "harmonic" version. If you actually tuned an instrument to that scale and then did the next logical thing which was to play a song more complicated than a nursery rhyme and have to create the frequency of a C sharp or an F natural, you'd use the 15:16 ratio to get the semitone difference.

You do that twelve times as you work your way around the circle of keys, and guess what happens? When you end up back at G, it's not the same G you started with. It's not 24 herz. It's something like 24.3 or 23.7, depending on which direction you went around the circle.

This would make it rather more complicated, to make a gross understatement, to build an instrument like a piano or a flute that could play in every key. Musicologists have found old dulcimers that had extra little frets sandwiched in between between the main frets, because the folk musicians could hear that the E flat they needed in an A flat major chord is not the same D sharp they needed in an B major chord.

Instrument makers solved this problem with higher mathematics. They leveled all the semitones away from the nice harmonic 15:16 ratio into -- get this -- the 12th root of two! An irrational number. Two adjacent piano keys or two flutes playing a semitone apart do not actually resonate in the ratio of small integers. In fact, they don't resonate at all! The resulting sine wave is irrational and never repeats. This scale is called the "chromatic" scale. It allows you to play in any key, using the same set of twelve frequencies.

Yet our brains hear the harmony that is not actually there. We're no longer hearing the actual harmonics of the physical sound. We're hearing the abstraction that our brains have programmed into them.

Now, talking about brains, did that one just turn yours into jello? We've got music in our heads that isn't there. Our brains give us "organically synthesized" sounds because they sound more beautiful than the ones that enter our ears.

Now, talking about brains, did that one just turn yours into jello? We've got music in our heads that isn't there. Our brains give us "organically synthesized" sounds because they sound more beautiful than the ones that enter our ears.

Hm. There are optical illusions, and synaesthesies, yes? The brain does fancy things to pictures, and colours also seem "warm" or "sweet" or "heavy" etc. Why shouldn't it be the same with sound?
Intuitively, I'd say there are also "audial illusions", as well as all kinds of synaesthesies when it comes to sound.

Maybe what is misleading and causing trouble isn't the inconsistent mathematical parameters of tone frequencies, but much more
1. us thinking that our brain deals with sound on a strictly analytical level,
2. us thinking that sensory inputs are separated from eachother and to be treated as such.


Do a somersault, and try to mathematically analyze and describe the movements, the force in the muscles, etc. -- no way! But you can do a somersault flawlessly.
This tells me that the brain and the body work with a different math than the one our rational mind is used to. I think this other knd of math is applied in the analysis (" ") of other input as well.

Ok so why is music so attractive? The answer is simple, the human animal just like all other creatures are programed to recognize symetry and perfection in its own species. Rythm and perfect physical attributes are seen in example with a persons walk, if one his legs is shorter than the other an irregular gait is observed, otherwise two perfect legs shows a harmonious movement that we perceive as beautiful. This maxim doesn't just apply to physical attributes, the way a person speaks and thinks also is recognizable by us as ways to determin good genetics. These inate programs in our brains also happen to reconize music's symetry and balance in this way, it evokes strong primitive responses, hence our love of music.

What is it about music that makes it so attractive to humans?

The answer is that music stimulates the pleasure center of the brain. Take
any sense you have and it has a range of impulses bound to your pleasure
zone. Just a few examples:

* Sight - Art
* Hearing - Music
* Taste - Food
* Touch - Sex
* Smell - Perfume

A fascinating question to ask could be 'Why do our senses stimulate the
pleasure center of the brain'. An even more fascinating question is what
is pleasure?

Did Beethoven say..."Music is the only incorporeal entrance to a higher world of knowledge; this higher world of knowledge may be surrounding us, but we cannot grasp it." (There is a subtle play of words in German though.)?

I think he was wrong. An entrance to a world that only may exist?..that we cannot grab?
The fact that he produced some of the most inspirational music of his time shows he was wrong. He had already been there.