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"Music Origin."
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Are non-human primates capable of rhythmic entrainment? Evidence for the gradual audiomotor evolution hypothesis
We propose a decomposition of the neurocognitive mechanisms that might underlie interval-based timing and rhythmic entrainment. Next to reviewing the concepts central to the definition of rhythmic entrainment, we discuss recent studies that suggest rhythmic entrainment to be specific to humans and a selected group of bird species, but, surprisingly, is not obvious in non-human primates. On the basis of these studies we propose the gradual audiomotor evolution hypothesis that suggests that humans fully share interval-based timing with other primates, but only partially share the ability of rhythmic entrainment (or beat-based timing). This hypothesis accommodates the fact that non-human primates (i.e., macaques) performance is comparable to humans in single interval tasks (such as interval reproduction, categorization, and interception), but show differences in multiple interval tasks (such as rhythmic entrainment, synchronization, and continuation). Furthermore, it is in line with the observation that macaques can, apparently, synchronize in the visual domain, but show less sensitivity in the auditory domain. And finally, while macaques are sensitive to interval-based timing and rhythmic grouping, the absence of a strong coupling between the auditory and motor system of non-human primates might be the reason why macaques cannot rhythmically entrain in the way humans do.
Journal Article
E. M. von Hornbostel as Listener and Scientist
In a 1904 essay on Isadora Duncan’s “Melodic Dance,” E. M. von Hornbostel articulated central premises of his work in comparative musicology: melodic movement acts “in a far more direct manner” than rhythm, and “among all ‘natural humans’ there is no speech without gestures, no song without dance.” His conception of a “common stock of human psycho-physical aptitudes” bears comparison with Aby Warburg’s interest in the “primeval vocabulary of the gestural language of passion.” His friend Robert Musil discussed the “primal forms of poetry” with Hornbostel and benefitted from the latter’s experiments in optical inversion, in which he may have participated.
Journal Article
The prehistory of music : human evolution, archaeology, and the origins of musicality
Music is possessed by all human cultures, and archaeological evidence for musical activities pre-dates even the earliest-known cave art. Music has been the subject of keen investigation across a great diversity of field, from neuroscience and psychology to ethnography, archaeology and its own dedicated field, musicology. Despite the great contributions that these studies have made towards understanding musical behaviours, much remains mysterious about this ubiquitous human phenomenon - not least, its origins. This study brings together evidence from these fields, and more, in investigating the evolutionary origins of our musical abilities, the nature of music, and the earliest archaeological evidence for musical activities amongst our ancestors.
Book
Evolutionary Musicology Meets Embodied Cognition: Biocultural Coevolution and the Enactive Origins of Human Musicality
Despite evolutionary musicology's interdisciplinary nature, and the diverse methods it employs, the field has nevertheless tended to divide into two main positions. Some argue that music should be understood as a naturally selected adaptation, while others claim that music is a product of culture with little or no relevance for the survival of the species. We review these arguments, suggesting that while interesting and well-reasoned positions have been offered on both sides of the debate, the nature-or-culture (or adaptation vs. non-adaptation) assumptions that have traditionally driven the discussion have resulted in a problematic
dichotomy. We then consider an alternative \"biocultural\" proposal that appears to offer a way forward. As we discuss, this approach draws on a range of research in theoretical biology, archeology, neuroscience, embodied and ecological cognition, and dynamical systems theory (DST), positing a more integrated model that sees biological and cultural dimensions as aspects of the same evolving system. Following this, we outline the enactive approach to cognition, discussing the ways it aligns with the biocultural perspective. Put simply, the enactive approach posits a deep continuity between mind and life, where cognitive processes are explored in terms of how self-organizing living systems enact relationships with the environment that are relevant to their survival and well-being. It highlights the embodied and ecologically situated nature of living agents, as well as the active role they play in their own developmental processes. Importantly, the enactive approach sees cognitive and evolutionary processes as driven by a range of interacting factors, including the socio-cultural forms of activity that characterize the lives of more complex creatures such as ourselves. We offer some suggestions for how this approach might enhance and extend the biocultural model. To conclude we briefly consider the implications of this approach for practical areas such as music education.
Journal Article
Perspectives on music and evolution
Many scholars of philosophy, aesthetics, religion, history or social science have ventured to offer a comprehensive explanation of music, one of the most intangible and elusive phenomena in the world. A palaeoanthropological approach, which places music into an evolutionary paradigm, can add important perspectives to our understanding of this phenomenon. To begin with, the question whether music is an adaptation that has survival value in the classical Darwinian sense is contemplated. Views on the origin of music in conjunction with the emergence of language and as a domain for the expression of emotion, linked to music’s benefits for social coherence, are discussed. More recent views on the emergence of consciousness, on semiosis and on music as a manifestation of biocultural co-evolution, especially in conjunction with ritual, are then presented. Finally, the merit of exploiting the concept of play to help account for the systematicity of music’s semiosis is examined.Contribution: In line with the intent of this special collection of articles, the above considerations are placed into the context of materialist versus nonmaterialist perspectives on the emergence of the human mind. The overarching argument is that music contributes crucially to what it means to be human.
Journal Article
Theorizing music evolution : Darwin, Spencer, and the limits of the human
\"Theorizing Music Evolution is a critical examination of ideas about musical origins, emphasizing both nineteenth-century theories of music in the evolutionist writings of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. What did historical evolutionists such as Darwin and Spencer have to say about music? What role did music play in their evolutionary theories? What were the values and limits of these evolutionist turns of thought, and in what ways have they endured in present-day music research? Author Miriam Piilonen argues for the significance of Victorian music-evolutionism in lights of its ties to a recently revitalized subfield of evolutionary musicology. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to music theorizing, Piilonen explores how historical thinkers constructed music in evolutionist terms and argues for an updated understanding of music as an especially fraught area of evolutionary thought\"-- Provided by publisher.
BOOK
Musical Rhythm, Linguistic Rhythm, and Human Evolution
There is now a vigorous debate over the evolutionary status of music. Some scholars argue that humans have been shaped by evolution to be musical, while others maintain that musical abilities have not been a target of natural selection but reflect an alternative use of more adaptive cognitive skills. One way to address this debate is to break music cognition into its underlying components and determine whether any of these are innate, specific to music, and unique to humans. Taking this approach, Justus and Hutsler (2005) and McDermott and Hauser (2005) suggest that musical pitch perception can be explained without invoking natural selection for music. However, they leave the issue of musical rhythm largely unexplored. This comment extends their conceptual approach to musical rhythm and suggests how issues of innateness, domain specificity, and human specificity might be addressed.
Journal Article