From Derek Bolton
Philip Ball’s article on the universality of music touches on the debate over a purported universal preference for consonance, quoting Josh McDermott as saying that some non-western cultures use what a westerner might consider “dissonant tuning” (8 May, p 30). This dissonance sometimes matches the special timbres of the instruments involved, such as those in a gamelan orchestra, which are very slightly out of tune with each other to produce what is considered a shimmering musical sound.
The obvious basis for the appeal of music is the human voice. One might dismiss that on the grounds that the voice should therefore be widely regarded as the pinnacle of music, but that does not follow. It is only necessary that whatever is instinctively the most musical is closer to the human voice than to most other naturally occurring sounds.
The human voice only makes one pitch at a time, but there are harmonics. A preference for consonance may therefore be a preference for one voice over many in discord. It would be interesting to analyse the pitches of two people talking “harmoniously”, in contrast to the same two arguing.
Sydney, Australia
