[Malte Müller]

I always thought it like Nils that nice vs dissonance has its core evolutionary roots in the natural environment where dissonance almost always means “danger”. A bit similar to sweet tasting fruits means eatable and bitter rather not.

But surely it is at least in Western Europe also learned via a few hundred years of our classic major-minor system. If you look at indegenious music or Arabian, Indian or Asian music they use originally quite different scales with quarter tones and what not that sound “dissonant” to our ears, too.

Btw. I always found interessting that so many Asian are so hooked on Western music. So many Chinsese or Japanse films – to stay in our niche – have rather Western music. Of course it might be a market decision – in Japan in the aftermath of WWII and US dominance – but nevertheless interesting. I am sure there are scientific studies about this who elaborated this in more depth.