Musical preferences correlate architectural tastes: preference correlations between architectural material features and musical instruments

ABSTRACT This study explores correlations between personal preferences for musical instruments and architectural materials. Specifically, it determines whether preferences for 12 musical instruments or their instrument families may reflect a preference tendency in architectural material features pertaining to colour, quality, texture, and reflection. First, a survey gathered individual appreciations of the attributes. After carefully distinguishing the valid responses, Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis revealed attribute preference correlations within different demographic classes, and Bonferroni correction screened the most reliable ones. The outcomes show different correlation trends across ages and genders, and once again confirm their importance in the preference correlations. Attributes related to material colour and quality reflected a higher number of correlations with musical instrument timber preferences, and thus have more potential to reflect the satisfactory attributes in another field. Several correlations were also discovered, thereby confirming the existence and potential uses of the preference correlations between musical instruments and architectural materials.