In case you wondered …

… In scientific studies of music, what’s missing is the culture. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The piece’s claims aren’t helped by the carelessness with which it tosses around terms from musical theory. Jaw’s spine-tingling refrain does not have traditional “minor chords,” exactly, and traditional minor chords are consonant, not dissonant. More importantly, though, the idea that our emotional response to music can be chalked up to simian reflexes ignores the extent to which our experience of music is shaped by the culture we grow up in. What’s more, this is a problem that many scientific studies of music overlook.