Now scientists think they know why.
They say that distorted and jarring music reminds us of the calls made by animals in distress.
This ‘brings out the animal in us’ by putting us on high alert for threats such as predators. In the modern world, this could take the form of moving to the edge of the cinema seat or feeling a tingling in the spine.
Chilling: The shower scene from Hitchcock's Psycho is well-known for its iconic, piercing violin score
Daniel Blumstein, of the University of California at Los Angeles said: ‘Music that shares aural characteristics with vocalisations of distressed animals captures human attention and is uniquely arousing.’
Dr Blumstein played clips of music composed by two musicians to a group of volunteers.
Some of the tunes were likened to ‘elevator music’ and were designed to be bland and have little effect on the emotions.
The other contained the sort of distorted sounds created when voices or musical instruments strain at the top of their range.
These tunes were described as being more exciting and scarier, the Royal Society journal Biology Letters reports.
Another notable example of the 'more exciting' musical form when instruments are strained at the top of their range was the music of Jimi Hendrix
Other examples of the genre include the eerie music in the shower scene of Psycho and the wailing guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix.
Researcher Greg Bryant said: ‘Composers have intuitive knowledge of what sounds scary without knowing why.
‘What they usually don’t realise is that they are exploiting our evolved predispositions to get excited and have negative emotions when hearing certain sounds.
‘This study helps explain why the distortion of rock ‘n’ roll gets people excited: It brings out the animal in us.’
A second experiment showed that the music to be less evocative if it accompanied by video clips of humdrum activities such as drinking coffee or going for a walk. ( dailumail.co.uk )
Blog : Beautiful Scene | Why high-pitch tunes scare us: Jarring notes 'brings out animals in us' by putting us on alert to predators
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