Objectivity in Music

I used to think that music, along w/ all art forms, are just subjective expression of an artist – that it’s all about personal taste. Superficially, it might be true – every type of music has its own stylistic vocabulary. But, the more I learn about music, the more I realize that in the foundational level, there IS the aspect of objectivity. Few examples:

1. How the Major and minor keys governs our mood from happy to sad.
2. How all the composers, w/out communicating w/ one another ended up 3 forms of minor scales in order to create tension/release while being consistent to diatonic forms of specific key.
3. How the half note distance between 7th scale degree and tonic creates dissonance that needs to be resolved.
4. How the minor key is recognized in the 3rd scale degree: ascending – melodic minor; descending – natural minor.

People might explain this scientifically – that music is the way sound wave affects our ears and in turn our emotion. And since our human biological make up is same, the way these frequencies affect each of us would also be same. Good point there…kinda gets me to think though…I guess we’re not as free as we want to be – we’re all subjected to laws of nature which God has created.

But then, I feel that we can’t always explain away effects of music just using science. One physicist in the class affirmed this last night – explanation of why certain harmony and movements affect our emotion or why music has even developed in the process of evolution cannot be explained in pure materialistic, scientific way. As for me, the only reason why I appreciate music and the arts is because I believe in the Creator God, who is the source of all aesthetics…I wouldn’t appreciate art if I wasn’t a Christian…