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I’ve often wondered if animals (dogs?) prefer, say, major harmony to disharmony or minor harmonies
The ear functions by resonating with different frequencies of sounds. These then get turned into nerve signals we interpret in the brain.
When mixed, different sounds interfere with each other. That interference can be “constructive” (emphasizing certain elements of the sound) or “destructive” (cancelling or minimizing certain elements of the sound). Every instrument has it’s own mixture of frequencies for each note, and mixing notes adds complexity to the mixture. The mixtures of sound are somewhat faithfully captured by the ear into the brain.
Western music is based on an approach to maximize the constructive/emphasizing combinations of notes. Specifically, “keys” exist to drive certain harmonies that constructvely combine. Many people in these Western cultures enjoyed these combinations so they were the basis for musical thinking for centuries.
Not all music styles prioritize harmonizing. Jazz, and even many classical hymn tunes, leverage dissonance (with deconstructive interference) to great effect. Western music does not always capture these nuances very well. Historic tuning of Western instruments like harpsichord and organ (especially ones without “even ” distance between notes) don’t quite fit into our modern notion of scales and keys, but were used to great effect.
In summary: keys and cords emphasize certain types of harmony that generally work well together. They deemphasize other types of harmony and many types of dissonance that are interesting and popular in non-Western musical traditions.
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