Research shows: music taste is a matter of appointment and habituation

That we have a scale the way we do, and that we perceive certain chords as beautiful, is because we have learned it. And what we have learned is the result of agreements. In music, as in fine art or theatre, there is no absolute ideal to which artists should aspire. No absolute beauty, no divine spark, no heaven to which we all long to return, just a set of agreements.

Consequently, we cannot condemn people for their musical tastes either: they just follow different conventions than we do. Researchers at the University of Melbourne in Australia have found that via experiments demonstrated.

The study proved that our sensitivity to 'dissonance', or 'false' chords, depends entirely on how accustomed we are to those tone combinations. Untrained listeners could not distinguish sound combinations that they did not recognise in any way, and thus experienced them as 'ugly', while people with some training in recognising those combinations were much more appreciative of what they heard. This shows that the ability to distinguish a musical tone is a matter of learning.

In a second experiment, untrained listeners were trained to listen to certain dissonances. After 10 lessons, they were found to appreciate those dissonances much more than the dissonances they were not trained in, regardless of the musical harmony they contained.

According to the researchers, this shows that musical taste is not an innate quality, but has everything to do with learned behaviour and culture. Moreover, it is also no longer appropriate to judge people on their musical taste, as it is all a matter of culture and habituation.

In this context, the researchers also point out that the 12-note scale that forms the basis of all Western music is also just an arrangement. After all, the Greek sage Pythagoras established these notes using a mathematical arrangement of string lengths. So the fact that we have come to appreciate combinations of vibrations by these string lengths is because for centuries we have heard nothing but that.

So nothing defines a culture more than the music its holders appreciate, but at the same time it is clear that a culture is a matter of learned behaviour, and not of better or worse physical or genetic qualifications. So if you don't appreciate Turkish music, or get dispassionate about Stockhausen: immerse yourself in it, and you will naturally start to appreciate it. Inescapable.