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Comment by dyzone | Hacker News Reader

> The music you were raised with sounds good to you

Speaking for myself, the music I was raised with doesn't sound that good to me.

What is meant here is that there are different musical cultures around the world, and if you grew up in one that, for example, prominently uses quarter-tones/microtones (e.g. a lot of music from Arabic and Indian cultures) then we know that you will have a different reaction to, say, Bach, than someone who grew up in a culture that uses strict equal temperament.

It does not mean "my parents played a lot of <X> and that doesn't sound good to me".

I grew up with Western music, and now Arabic music is one of my favorites. I really don't think Westerners hear semitones differently. Also, a lot of Arabic music is 12-tone, and even if it weren't, they probably appreciate Bach the same way.

No, people don't "hear semitones differently" but ... practicing musicians from one culture will choose to use semitones, quartertones and microtones differently, and a listener with a lot of musical exposure will notice this when listening to music that does and does not involve such practices.

Also just realized, I don't think much Arabic music has used semitones in like 100 years. The classical ones do.

You can re-train your ear of course. But on average a lot of people used to western music feel that classical arabic/indian music with half/quarter tones in it sounds 'out of tune'/wrong.

I really like classical arabic music. But when I tried to play the half tones in a tune I studied hard on the syrian guy I was playing with told me to please not attempt those because I was horribly out of tune :-P . Not because I played a half tone, of course. He did play them. But because my half tone was subtly slightly off the right half tone.

I think you have to be extra careful with things like the bayati scale besides just being in tune. The quarter-tone has its role but is easy to misuse, like staying on it too long. The opposite is pentatonic where you can spam random notes and nothing sounds too bad, but it's not very interesting, and then blues or 8-note Western scales are in the middle.

When it's done well, I don't notice unless I'm looking for it. Like speaking of Syria, I think this George Wassouf song uses quarter tones, not even sure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsD7ixyFm90 . It's more noticeable in oud solos, but someone who doesn't know better could write it off as just the way the instrument sounds.

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