VIDEO: Study Asks If Musical Taste Is Cultural or Biological

When 1950s teenagers first began twisting and shouting to the backbeats and rhythms of rock and roll, many of the older generation condemned their music as just a lot of noise.

There were those who reacted the same way to Wagner's operas, Beethoven's symphonies and Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."

Certainly no musical style is going to appeal to everyone, but is our preference something that's acquired through familiarity and culture or hardwired into our brains?

MIT News reports of a study by MIT and Brandeis University suggesting that preferences in music are cultural and not biological.

Western style of music, from European classical to American pop, has long regarded certain combinations of notes to be more pleasant to the ear than others. Consonant chords are generally considered favorable to dissonant ones.

"Scientists have often hypothesized that the preference for consonance over dissonance has a biological basis and that people might be born with it," says Josh McDermott, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Sciences. "Ethnomusicologists and composers, in contrast, have typically assumed that consonance is a cultural invention that would be unique to Western listeners who grow up in Western culture."

"One of the reasons why this question has remained unresolved," he continues, "is that there is remarkable little experimental data in individuals that don't have massive amounts of exposure to Western culture and Western music."

As seen in the video, a study of more than 100 people belonging to a remote Amazonian tribe with little or no exposure to Western music, asked for opinions on what types of musical sounds were preferred.

Click here for the full article.