News Psychology Timbre can affect what harmony is music to our ears Instruments’ unique voices may explain why different cultures developed their own musical scales The bonang is a collection of small gongs played in a Javanese gamelan. In a new experiment, people preferred chords containing bonanglike notes that broke Western music theory's rules for beautiful harmony. ibenk.88/iStock/Getty Images Plus Share this:EmailFacebookTwitterPinterestPocketRedditPrint By Maria Temming March 21, 2024 at 8:00 am The mathematical rules for creating musical harmony may be more malleable than thought. Western music theory traditionally holds that chords sound most pleasant when they contain notes