Blame your music taste on your parents
A study set out to discover what influences your music taste . They found that the culture you were raised in is far more influential than biological factors. While this music taste theory is somewhat obvious, these researchers decided to prove it with an experiment.
It is quite common to be drawn to the sounds of your childhood once you reach adulthood. It is also quite typical of human nature to be drawn to what is familiar to you; therefore it makes sense that this will influence your music taste.
Cultural Differences in music taste
“Our results show there is a profound cultural difference in the way people respond to consonant and dissonant sounds Consonant chords typically consist of notes that harmonise, or sound good together. By contrast, dissonant chords typically jar and are less pleasing to hear.” said Josh McDermott, lead author of the paper.
They carried out the study by surveying various cultures from all over the world. This included the Tsimane tribe, an indigenous tribe in Bolivia that has an uncommon way of expressing music.
Where the Western tradition is to harmonise and play simultaneously, in Bolivia this tribe likes to play one line at a time.
Fascinated by the Tsimane tribe, they investigated the tribe’s responses to different types of music; a ‘dissonant sound’, which is generally considered unpleasant to hear, and a ‘consonant chord’, which is normally considered to be pleasing.
The Tsimane tribe was able to distinguish between the tones but they had no preference between the dissonant and consonant chords.
They believe this to prove that your music taste has a lot less to do with how original and trailblazing you may believe you are. But that it has more to do with how you were raised and the kinds of music and sounds that you were exposed to.
“The observed variation in preferences is presumably determined by exposure to musical harmony, suggesting that culture has a dominant role in shaping aesthetic responses to music.”
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