Music as Biology: The Tones We Like and Why Purves Dale
The universality of musical tones has long fascinated philosophers, scientists, musicians, and ordinary listeners. Why do human beings worldwide find some tone combinations consonant and others…
Specifikacia Music as Biology: The Tones We Like and Why Purves Dale
The universality of musical tones has long fascinated philosophers, scientists, musicians, and ordinary listeners. Why do human beings worldwide find some tone combinations consonant and others dissonant? Why do we make music using only a small number of scales out of the billions that are possible? Why do differently organized scales elicit different emotions? Why are there so few notes in scales? In Music as Biology, Dale Purves argues that biology offers answers to these and other questions on which conventional music theory is silent.When people and animals vocalize, they generate tonal sounds--periodic pressure changes at the ear which, when combined, can be heard as melodies and harmonies. Human beings have evolved a sense of tonality, Purves explains, because of the behavioral advantages that arise from recognizing and attending to human voices. The result is