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Published online 19 June 2004 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news040614-11
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Tunes create context like language
Maths shows why tonal music is easy listening.
Everfelt as though a piece of music is speaking to you? You could be right: musical notes are strung together in the same patterns as words in a piece of literature, according to an Argentinian physicist.
His analysis also reveals a key difference between tonal compositions, which are written in a particular key, and atonal ones, which are not.
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