Why Does Music Make Us Feel?
Mark Changizi suggests one theory:
Human movement has been conjectured to underlie music as far back as the Greeks. As a hypothesis this has the advantage that we have auditory systems capable of making sense of the sounds of people moving in our midst – an angry stomper approaching, a delicate lilter passing, and so on. Some of these movements trigger positive emotions – they conjure up images of pleasant activities – while others might be automatically associated with fear or anxiety.
I have heard this argument before but I am hesitant to say it is the definitive reason. Surely sounds give us some information about the world around us which trigger physical responses, but music is not just informative sound. The reason we associate Night On Bald Mountain with something scary is because of Disney, not our human instincts. In my opinion, music falls more on the nature side of the nature vs. nurture argument.