Yes, ultimately taste, or `what sounds good' decides. But mathematical approaches to all the building blocks of music can bring new materials to the ear which m

Yes, ultimately taste, or `what sounds good' decides. But mathematical approaches to all the building blocks of music can bring new materials to the ear which might sound good. For example, I love the third mode of harmonic major (Phrygian flat 4) because I like the way it sounds. But I wouldn't have discovered it if I hadn't been thinking about scales in a systematic, mathematical kind of way.