Timbre can affect what harmony is music to our ears

The mathematical rules for creating musical harmony may be more malleable than thought.

Western music theory traditionally holds that chords sound most pleasant when they contain notes separated by certain intervals (SN: 5/9/23). Namely, intervals where the notes’ frequencies have simple ratios — like 2:1 (an octave) or 3:2 (a fifth).

But new research reveals that people’s actual preferred harmonies depend on the timbre of the notes. Timbre is the distinct flavor of sound produced by specific instruments — the reason that the same note played at the same volume sounds different on the piano, guitar or gong.

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