[hugryhoop]

The neurological basis is quite simple: the brain is a prediction machine, and it's rewarded when it predicts correctly.

This is why music is pleasant - it's highly structured nature is easy to predict, thus rewarding.

This can be further optimized: the "drop" in club music for example, which is anticipated and teased over even longer distance (tens of seconds, even minutes).

[drupe]

The tension between, and variation of, predictable and surprising elements in music are clearly important to it's enjoyability.

But to reduce the pleasure of listening to or playing music to "music is easy to predict therefore it feels good" seems overly simplistic.

Maybe you didn't intend to make that reduction, but your comment comes off that way, to me at least.

[331c8c71]

> The tension between, and variation of, predictable and surprising elements in music are clearly important to it's enjoyability.

I heard this idea a few times as well and I interpreted it more as being about a piece of music in relation to other pieces in the same genre or simular musically (e.g. harmonically, melodically or rhythmically).

When we talk about popular music I think for the majority people it will be nearly perfectly predictable after hearing a composition a few times. Clearly people enjoy re-listening the tunes they like so I think the point of predictability being enjoyable still stands.

Though I guess the idea about the tension between novelty and predictability applies to many contexts. Another example I clearly understand is that the melody needs to be a bit surprising with respect to the harmony to be interesting and enjoyable. Also the structure of the music seems to revolve around this idea as well - even the popular songs more often than note incorporate intros, solos, bridges, breaks and/or key changes to blend the chorus-verse base pattern.

[cassepipe]

Can you elaborate in what sense you find it simplistic ?

What I would personally add to that model is that if the music is "too easy" to predict for the brain, there's no challenge hence no reward. But that complements rather than contradict the initial theory.