Harmonicity and Roughness in the Biology of Tonal Aesthetics

Music Percept. 2021 Feb;38(3):331-334. doi: 10.1525/mp.2021.38.3.331. Epub 2021 Feb 1.

Abstract

Evidence supporting a link between harmoni-city and the attractiveness of simultaneous tone combinations has emerged from an experiment designed to mitigate effects of musical enculturation. I examine the analysis undertaken to produce this evidence and clarify its relation to an account of tonal aesthetics based on the biology of auditory-vocal communication.

Keywords: Consonance; aesthetics; evolution; harmonicity; roughness; vocalization.