MTed,

I'm afraid I have to firmly disagree on this point. Dissonance and Consonance I think are fairly well based in physiology, and one measure of this is that the most consonant intervals are the most universal. What is a matter of artistic convention (notice I tried to avoid the pop-sociological language) is the desirability and uses of consonance and dissonance. It is like spicy food--most people should be able to agree on which foods are hotter than others, but are likely to agree on which is "better".

The physiology it is based on, BTW, is not as simple as just taking the notes that appear at low order in the harmonic series for a single ideal string. It is based on the degree to which the ear hears various intervals beat-free. The harmonic series for a single string is a good predictor of this, but that is more in the way of an extremely fortunate accident than a causal relation. The causal relation is based on hetrodyne frequencies generated in the ear combined with the Fourier spectrum of the sounds being heard.

While I agree with GUEST that creeping relativism is probably involved (but it's pretty slippery to speculate on other's motivations, isn't it?), but I think there is another error involved. That said, one of the besetting sins of these discussions is forgetting one of the oldest lessons--Aristotle's rule that one must keep in mind that every field of inquiry has it's own degree of precision, and it is a fool's game to ask more precision than the field supports. In the game at hand, one can probably always find singular exceptions to every rule. Singular exceptions are a disproof in mathematics, because that is the appropriate degree of accuracy we ask of mathematical statements. They are not in most other fields, including this one. What matters is, as a historian might say, convergence of the evidence. This is no different than attempts to prove that all morality is convention by citing singular examples while ignoring the great chorus of human cultures on a number of basic principles.

It is also important to keep in mind that this doesn't mean experience can't modify the underlying tendancies to some degree, because they can. For example, I am so used to equal temperament tuning that I don't have a real preference for just thirds over equal temperament thirds. Does this mean that I'm the exception that disproves the rule that equal tempered thirds are more dissonant? Absolutely not. It means that my experiences have modified that particular perception. *But* there is no doubt in my mind that the natural tendancy is to prefer just thirds for excellent physiological reasons. I've simply gotten used to equal tempered thirds in the same way that I've acquired a reasonable tolerance for hot food. One wouldn't use me as a disproof of the idea that (good) curry is hotter than mashed potatoes, either. I've come to prefer the heat, and I don't perceive it as being so hot as I once did, but I certainly can tell the difference between hot and bland.

Dustin