Sound. And connotation--- communicative emotional responses

Forgive my lack of clarity but I can’t really explain this without be longwinded so instead of writing 3 pages I figured I’d go sloppy and hope you get the message—with the bonus of brevity.

Sound. And connotation--- communicative emotional responses

So for a while I’ve been wondering about sound--- and how it so obviously adds meaning to film and/or situations. What tipped me off on it was Conan O’Brien(maybe Leno) had a not too funny skit where he took suspense or horror clips from movies and replaced the usual dark/brooding music and/or sounds with comedic ones. The subtraction of the original and addition of the comedic audio was indeed slightly humorous, but mostly cuz of the polarity of the sight and sounds.

Anyway, I am wondering if sound and the usual conception is something that is heavily innate or whether it is something that is closely tied to learning? For example, the fast screechy violins in horror flicks are obviously heard-cliché-again-and-again-and-again cuz of the cheap repetition of Hollywood, BUT was there a legitimate reason why that sound actually stimulates us in the manner it does(spook) in the first place? Is there something in the sound itself? Beyond conditioned response(repeated pairing of blood and violins)?

I am suggesting that there probably is, and if there is then that means sound(non-verbal) and especially the musical variety can in-fact add transmittable, transactive, translative meaning when paired with highly connotative visuals to match(and as Conan pointed out, when the opposite meaning is attached as well) But I would say that on its own(without a sensual counterpart) it doesn’t fair very well in communicating, thereby eliciting emotional responses.(listen to the mullholland drive soundtrack without the visuals and the strength of any emotional responses are greatly weakened---yet screechy violins probably could make you feel a lil uneasy on there own, but nowhere nearly as much as when paired with the horrific images)

I was talkling to my brother and he said that he figured that it would be a feral response that could be harkened back to birds and roars; the tweet of birds would be the equivalent of pleasant sounds and the roar of a bear or tiger would be the distressing sounds and that most music/sound (when connotative, added to film or whatnot---perhaps mood music) can be thought of with the tweet-roar analogy in mind…

Could this be true? Would a scarey, minor-keyed, dissonant, cluster of sound’s power lie in the same essential fear inducing audio of a tiger roar or scream from a downed, bout-to-be-eaten, piglet? And that a lovely, major-keyed, Mozart or Beatles deally have some emotional root in the tweet of a bird or coo gurgle laugh of a healthy baby or whispery words from a lover or comfortingmother or friend?

Is there something measurable?

Learned or innate, and to what extent?

Does this make sense?