For music nuts:
Which note do you think is most pleasing to the human ear? I’ve heard C is popular people have told me A too. Anyone have any opinions?
How about chords? Which chord is most pleasing to you to hear? Nothing sounds quite as clear to me as A, but popular opinion is split on this as well.
While I’m at it, how about keys? Which key? (Personally, I like Bm).
I’m SURE somebody has done research on this; I’ve heard it discussed before. Is this a matter of personal preference, or is it ingrained in our human nature to like certain notes?
I don’t have a particular preference for notes, but my favorite interval is a sixth, specially from F to D above middle c. If I think of chords, I’d only have a preference for how they follow each other, since particular chords work well at times and not others. If it’s just by itself, I sort of like E minor. I’m sure there’s others. By A do you mean A Maj, or any chord built on A?
I seem to recall hearing somewhere that Bb is a very popular key; not that it makes it more pleasing necessarily. WRT vocal pop music, the keys that work best with the singer sound the best, so some groups will favor a some keys.
I’ll add a WAG about tonal preferences: The frequency of the human head is around 120 Hz, around low E. So it’s possible other resonances lead to other preferences for notes. It’d be nice to compare especially with non-Western music to find out any similarities. OTOH, tuning frequencies have varied somewhat, so maybe only someone with perfect pitch could really notice these things.
panama jack
The difficulty is that the really good music, whether of the East or of the West, cannot be analysed. - Einstein
Well, I won’t go into much theorizing on why, but C# below middle C (how is that written? c#? C#’?) always sounded kinda keen to me, and my favorite key is G. But I always liked the sound of Dm7, once I learned how to construct it.
“Dm is the saddest key of all.”
I don’t know which particular key it is that I like most, but I do know that minor sounds much better to me than major.
There was a clocktower at Rice that would gong out the hour in a minor key. Very cool. Much better than the standard big-ben tune.
What’s that song you’re playing, KevinB?
What??? It is quite impossible for “the human head” to have a “frequency”. It sounds as if you’re talking about sympathetic vibration (ie. that one note that really sets the bathroom buzzin’ when you’re humming in the shower), but I still have no idea what you’re talking about in reference to people’s heads.
As to the OP: I really enjoy the sounds of flat keys–A-flat, E-flat, D-flat, etc. I find C rather dull.
It may be cultural. As I understand it, the Ionic mode (the white keys on the piano beginning with C) is the most popular mode for western music; other cultures favour different modes.
aschrott, I believe that panamajack is referring to the resonant frequency of the skull, one frequency (actually, there are many resonant frequencies) which will tend to create constructive interference, causing a clear, rich tone to be produced. It is, in fact, the very same phenomenon that causes sympathetic vibration. Any chamber where sound waves can bounce back and forth (shower stall, human skull, flute column) will produce it, given the right pitch.
I can’t verify the number, 120 Hz, because I don’t know the speed that sound travels through skull innards, but I did hear that the resonant frequency of chicken skulls is 7 Hz, a fact which was discovered when a factory putting out large-scale sound waves at 7 Hz opened up next to a chicken ranch. Soon after the machinery was activated, the chickens all died from the vibrations. If that’s so, I don’t know if I’ll be listening to too many 120-Hz tones, thanks anyway.
oasis - The research in this field is called psychoacoustics; I don’t know much about it, but you may want to check out some reading on it for more information.
One note alone is pretty much like any other note alone, with the possible exception of very low or very high tones which may be annoying (or pleasing if you drive a low-rider with tinted windows and are easily impressed with low frequencies.)
I would say most musical preference begins at intervals – as panamajack said he prefers a sixth. Personally, I really, really like a5 -> p5. So much so, I often overuse it in my own music. Of couse that doesn’t mean anything without the root; and since I also prefer the Dorian mode, I guess I just have a thing for half-steps.
Since one way to look at a chord is in terms of the intervals it contains, I would suggest that the two most popular intervals are m3 and M3. m3 is the preferred “sad” interval, M3 the preffered “majestic” interval.
Since most popular music now uses instruments in equal temperment, there is no difference in the characteristics of any particular key (or chord) of the same spelling. This is, of course, is not true for all music (or instruments).
So anyway, for the OP: I don’t think there is too much preference for a single note; the more consonant the interval, the more pleasing; and the chord with the fewest possible consonant intervals is preffered (so this would be a major or minor triad); key is irrelevant.
The exception to above is of course “Lick My Love Pump”, as KevinB already knew.