Re: Why the music is music and the noise is noise?

[John Culling <jfc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>I doubt that this is due to cultural experience with
>polyphonic music having shaped our tastes, since the pentatonic scale
>is so popular in what we may (presumptuously) call "simpler" music
>cultures that probably evolved with monophonic instruments.

Probably someone has looked into this in more detail, but just to say
that the argument isn't that simple - you can make polyphonic music
without a polyphonic instrument - look at the instruments that make
up most orchestras. In simpler cultural times, multiple voices, flutes
and so on would have benefitted from a pentatonic scale.

John.