To me music is just a series of coherent patterns that we've been conditioned to associate with our emotions. So I believe music to be more an evolution in communication than anything else. Whether we use maqams or western scales if they fail to form a coherent structure according to their own axioms we find it difficult to relate to them.
Take any western piece of music and you'll get a general consensus of whether it is a sad, happy or haunting piece, but I don't think it makes music an objective study, take a piece of eastern music and people tend to relate to it by it's country of origin rather than an inherit emotion, take an atonal piece to someone who hasn't formed a grasp of atonal music and every atonal piece will sound devoid of any message and just disturbing.
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