Trends in consonance preference across musical cultures

谐音偏好的音乐现象——对特定音高组合的感觉比其他音高组合更令人愉快——自古以来就引起了学者们的兴趣。最近的实证研究（Eerola和Lahdelma, 2021； Friedman等人，2021；Harrison和Pearce, 2020； Smit等人，2019）在确定和声偏好的潜在因素方面取得了进展，其中粗糙度、和谐度和熟悉度成为核心因素（Harrison, 2021）。然而，和声作为低粗糙度和高和声的函数的概念是通过几乎完全由西方参与者参与的听力实验和对西方乐谱的分析来了解的。有初步证据表明，不同文化背景的音阶结构倾向于平滑和和谐的音程（McBride & Tlusty, 2020; Gill & Purves, 2009），但声称实际的音乐实践表现出一种跨文化趋势，即粗糙度最小化和和谐最大化（Bowling等人，2017;Schellenberg & Trehub, 1996），并没有得到严格的证实。没有对音乐语料库（音频或符号形式的音乐集合）的研究调查了非西方音乐中同步音高组合（辅音的代理；Parncutt等人，2019;Harrison & Pearce, 2020）的统计流行程度。这种可能性仍然是开放的，即作为低粗糙度和高和声的函数的和声偏好是当代西方听众和最近西方音乐实践中孤立的现象。必须对这种可能性进行调查，以阐明不同文化中人类音乐感知的异同，确定以西方为中心的普遍性假设是否有效，并强调非西方国家的音乐值得科学探究。我建议填补上述当代谐音研究的空白，以确定最近的发现是否具有跨文化和历史的普遍性。这将通过语料库研究和听力实验来完成。语料库研究将使用改进的抽样方法和更合适的计算模型（Harrison & Pearce, 2020; Eerola & Lahdelma, 2021），将现有的研究扩展到西方历史音乐（Parncutt等人，2019），并通过检查文化多样性的语料库，确定西方协和概念的历史稳定性及其在全球范围内对音乐的适用性，从而取得突破性进展。这些语料库研究的发现将为设计方法学上合理和文化上敏感的跨文化听力实验提供假设，从而为来自非西方文化的听众的辅音现象行为提供直接证据。

The musical phenomenon of consonance preference - the perception of specific pitch combinationsas more pleasant than others - has intrigued scholars since antiquity. Recent empirical studies(Eerola & Lahdelma, 2021; Friedman et al., 2021; Harrison & Pearce, 2020; Smit et al., 2019) havemade progress in identifying the factors underlying consonance preference, with roughness,harmonicity, and familiarity emerging as core contributors (Harrison, 2021). However, theconception of consonance as a function of low roughness and high harmonicity is informed bylistening experiments involving almost exclusively Western participants, and analyses of Westernmusical scores. There is preliminary evidence that background scale structures across diversecultures favour smooth and harmonic intervals (McBride & Tlusty, 2020; Gill & Purves, 2009), butclaims that actual musical practice exhibits a cross-cultural trend towards roughness minimisationand harmonicity maximisation (Bowling et al., 2017; Schellenberg & Trehub, 1996) are not rigorouslysubstantiated. No studies of musical corpora (collections of music in audio or notated form) haveinvestigated the statistical prevalence of simultaneous pitch combinations (a proxy for consonance;Parncutt et al., 2019; Harrison & Pearce, 2020) in non-Western musics. The possibility remains openthat consonance preference as a function of low roughness and high harmonicity is a phenomenonisolated to contemporary Western listeners and recent Western musical practice. This possibilitymust be investigated to shed light on the similarities and differences in human music perceptionacross cultures, to determine whether Western-centric assumptions of universality are valid, and tohighlight music from non-Western countries as worthy of scientific inquiry.I propose to fill in the abovementioned gaps in contemporary consonance research, to establishwhether recent findings generalise cross-culturally and historically. This will be accomplishedthrough corpus studies and listening experiments. The corpus studies will expand existing researchinto historical Western music (Parncutt et al., 2019) using improved sampling methods and moreappropriate computational models (Harrison & Pearce, 2020; Eerola & Lahdelma, 2021) and breaknew ground by examining culturally diverse corpora, to determine the historical stability of theWestern consonance concept and its applicability to music at a global scale. The findings of thesecorpus studies will inform hypotheses for designing methodologically sound and culturally sensitivecross-cultural listening experiments to provide direct evidence of the behaviour of the consonancephenomenon in listeners from non-Western cultures.