Okay, so when you hear a song, let’s say In the Hall of the Mountain King – it’s a little bit spooky, a little bit creepy-crawly.
Does the music sound this way, and we feel this way because of the inherent sounds themselves? Or have the particular instrument/note combinations been so frequently used for spooky situations that we now automatically associate it as spooky music?
The same can be said for anything really, ‘space’ music, romantic music, sad music. Which way round is the association?
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Music is sound arranged in time. Musical notes are sound waves that work together because their wave lengths sync up… different notes together have a different effect – the perfect fifth interval works together best (because the ratio of the waves syncs up in a pleasing way to our ears). When you go against established relationships of notes together we almost naturally find this jarring – if you flatten the fifth interval that works so well, you get a diminished fifth, which doesn’t work as well. It was actually banned by the church and called “the interval of the devil”.
We also naturally favour regular, repeating rhythms – our hearts, the way way walk, the night and day cycle etc. are regular rhythms, so they’re around us all the time. Our responses to these “rules” are part nature from what we’re used to, but when people know how to play these rules they can create an emotional effect. Sad music will always sound kinda sad, happy music sounds happy, and some music is just creepy.
The flip side of that is we learn to make associations. Tubular Bells is a relaxing piece of music unless you’re watching the exorcist. So in answer to your question it’s a bit of both, but I would say it’s more down to the music itself.
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