Chords and Sonic Similarities to the Human Voice

by | Jul 8, 2018 | Research | 0 comments

Why do some Chords feel right – while others feel wrong?

Recent research has suggested that popular chords feel right for a reason and dissonance feels wrong for a reason.

Listen to artists like Joseph Collier who suggest that every note goes with every note which is the basis for his incredibly unique and complicated vocal harmonies… but also could be a reason why we do or don’t like certain types of music or certain songs based on the chords being used.

Scientists have been proposing that there may be a common feature – sonic similarities to the human voice

Neurologist Daniel Bowling of the University of Vienna suggests that our brains evolved to react to certain sounds. vocal sounds and musical sounds are harmonic using a set of frequencies – which means that tones can be blended into chords and some will match the frequencies of the human voice.

The study below asked test subjects to listen and rate how attractive they found chords played on a piano – turns out the similarity to voice chords matched up more than 8 out of 10 times

Perhaps that’s why the 4 Chord Song progressions work so well 🙂

If music be the food of love – play on!!

Link to the original research http://www.pnas.org/content/115/1/216

Vocal similarity predicts the relative attraction of musical chords
“Musical chords are combinations of two or more tones played together. While many different chords are used in music, some are heard as more attractive (consonant) than others. ”
Significance
The foundations of human music have long puzzled philosophers, mathematicians, psychologists, and neuroscientists. Although virtually all cultures uses combinations of tones as a basis for musical expression, why humans favor some tone combinations over others has been debated for millennia. Here we show that our attraction to specific tone combinations played simultaneously (chords) is predicted by their spectral similarity to voiced speech sounds.

 

This connection between auditory aesthetics and a primary characteristic of vocalization adds to other evidence that tonal preferences arise from the biological advantages of social communication mediated by speech and language

Abstract
Musical chords are combinations of two or more tones played together. While many different chords are used in music, some are heard as more attractive (consonant) than others. We have previously suggested that, for reasons of biological advantage, human tonal preferences can be understood in terms of the spectral similarity of tone combinations to harmonic human vocalizations. Using the chromatic scale, we tested this theory further by assessing the perceived consonance of all possible dyads, triads, and tetrads within a single octave. Our results show that the consonance of chords is predicted by their relative similarity to voiced speech sounds. These observations support the hypothesis that the relative attraction of musical tone combinations is due, at least in part, to the biological advantages that accrue from recognizing and responding to conspecific vocal stimuli.

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