The mathematical rules for creating musical harmony may be more malleable than thought. Western music theory traditionally holds that chords sound most pleasant when they contain notes separated by ...

But, counterintuitive though it might seem, I don’t think sound is always a helpful way to understand genre. I’m a composer and conductor in the field that’s broadly known as Western classical music, ...

Zooming in on the auditory cortex, the researchers found three unique sets of neurons that light up while we listen to music. Two sets of neurons encode absolute pitch (individual musical notes) and ...