Cultural Anthropology Blog

Henry Quillin 
Mr. Roddy 
IHSS
9 - 12 - 19 
Studies of remote Amazonian villages reveal how culture influences our musical preferences.
While it is commonly believed that musical taste is written in our biology, new studies have shown that it is instead the culture that surrounds us that shapes our taste in music. The combination of C and G or “the perfect fith” for example is thought in western society to be very likeable and consonant, while a cord like C and F# are thought of as very unpleasant, so much so that it gained the nickname “Devil’s Interval”, or “flatted fifth”. Many scientists have wondered if this distaste in chords like this is hardwired in our brains, or if there is an outside factor that is responsible. 
A new study from MIT and Brandeis University may prove that musical preference is not in fact hardwired into our brains. The study consisted of more than 100 people from the Tsimane tribe, which is an Amazonian tribe that has very little exposure to western culture and music. The researchers played two different cords for each participant, a very pleasant sounding chord(to us westerners at least), and another very dissonant chord. When they were asked which sound sounded more likeable, the dissonant chord was rated the same as the pleasant chord. Both of the chords sounded the same in terms of consonance to the tribe members. “This study suggests that preferences for consonance over dissonance depend on exposure to Western musical culture, and that the preference is not innate,” says Josh McDermott, the Frederick A. and Carole J. Middleton Assistant Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. We hear dissonance in cords like the “Devil's interval” because it is rarely played in western music, which the Tsimane people have little exposure to. 
But this may only apply to musical melodies and not noises. The Tsimane people were asked to rate other noises like laughter and gasps. The results showed that the people from the tribe had similar preferences to westerners in terms of the non musical noises. They were also asked to listen to examples of a musical quality known as “acoustic roughness”. They showed the same dislike to the sample of acoustic roughness as the western participants. 
This was a very interesting article and I now understand that musical preference is determined not by biology but by cultural factors.

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