The difference between consonance and dissonance is demonstrated through two short piano passages: One follows all the simplest rules of harmony, the other violates them—and, indeed, the second ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American It might be easiest to understand by ...

People’s taste in music is a result of their upbringing, rather than biology, according to new research from MIT. For decades, scientists have hypothesised that human brains are hardwired to prefer ...

The Tsimane’ – a population of people in a rural village in Bolivia – are overturning scientists’ understanding of why humans prefer consonant sounds over dissonant ones. By Hasan Chowdhury It was 29 ...

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. The discovery comes from experiments showing that an infant chimpanzee prefers to listen to consonant ...