[Thor Joachim Haga]

Interesting thoughts, Nils.

Could it be some evolutionary, genetic trait? Is it because tonal music reminds people of nice natural sounds like birdsong, while dissonance is more akin to the sounds of natural dangers, unconsciously conjuring up things like a landslide or a lion’s roar?

There are numerous theories as to why we find certain types of music pleasing and certain types not. I touched on some of it in my own thesis, in fact. Here’s an introductory quote from that, Google translated:

In relation to the pleasure of music more generally, philosophers since Plato have speculated whether it is a result of our intellectual capacity to recognize structures. In this respect, the composer can play on the repetition and prolongation of musical fragments and, as is the case in Western, tonal music, satisfy the listener’s desire for stability by returning to a tonal center. A physiological theory has located pleasure in our sensory apparatus; in our nervous system. The rhythms, harmonies and melodies of music have their resonant base in an unconscious recognition of sounds from a pre-oedipal period (cf. Freud) in what Anzieu calls a “sound envelope” (‘envelope sonore’) (1976).

Expectations are definitely part of it, an innate need for things to resolve, as I touched on earlier in the thread (re: Herrmann).

But I think there’s something even more fundamental about it as well, in relation to specific sounds. Maybe a ‘fight or flight’ thing that arises when there are threatening sounds, as you suggest. And so this can be transcribed to music.