SWEET SOUNDS?: Ricardo Godoy tests the auditory preferences of a Tsimane’ man in Bolivia.ALAN SCHULTZ, BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
Deep in the Amazon rainforests of Bolivia live the Tsimane’, a tribe that has remained relatively untouched by Western civilization. Tsimane’ people possess a unique characteristic: they do not cringe at musical tones that sound discordant to Western ears. The vast majority of Westerners prefer consonant chords to dissonant ones, based on the intervals between the musical notes that compose the chords. One particularly notable example of this is the Devil’s Interval, or flatted fifth, which received its name in the Middle Ages because the sound it produced was deemed so unpleasant that people associated it with sinister forces. The flatted fifth later became a staple of numerous jazz, blues, and rock-and-roll songs.
Over the years, scientists have gathered compelling evidence to suggest that an ...
