Originally Posted by Bass Thumper
I really can’t speak to what is generally accepted. I’m sure there is much research ongoing. But when I connect the dots that I’m familiar with it seems that our neural processors prefer patterns that are easy to process. Complex ratios create irregular patterns resulting in dissonance while simple ratios produce pleasing neural firings resulting in consonance.
I'm going to belabor the point a bit more.

When you say "Complex ratios create irregular patterns", it feels like there's some handwaving going on. It's not as if our ears are sending pure signals to the brain, and the neurons are comparing pitch ratios. That's just not how hearing works.

The processing of signal to pitch takes place in the ear, not in the brain. The ear functions as a pitch discriminator. However, there are limits to what pitches can be discriminated between. When two pitches fall within that margin - the critical band - they land on the same receptor. And that receptor complains I'm having trouble differentiating between these two pitches.

That's a much simpler mechanism than what you seem to be proposing, and it seems to be borne out by studies.

We have other examples of processing taking place at the sensor level, such as the eye. The image on the eye's receptors passes through multiple layers, and determinations are made at the within the eye, not the brain. For example, a frog's eyes has specialized "bug detectors" for detecting small moving shapes and "event detectors" for general movement. To reiterate, this processing happens in the frog's eye, not its brain.

Music is much more than simply "consonance" and "dissonance". It's the creative use of these elements, structuring them in time and motion, as well as setting and sometimes evading expectations.

But research indicates that that simple concept of "concept" and "dissonance" can be explained via critical bands within the ear, rather than a higher-level neural processing.

-- David Cuny

My virtual singer development blog
Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?

BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.