Anthropology of Music - Science topic

Try this music-specific link: https://www.public.asu.edu/~dnilsen/documents/musichumor.ppt

Or go here for a broader selection of different disciplines and/or topics: https://www.public.asu.edu/~dnilsen/

Prof Dr Jamel Chahed

Thank you. It must have been an unforgettable night.

Looking at the link you sent me, it made me think of Lou Reed, as this was originally the Velvet Underground; it brings back memories:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJy0LP8iYPg

We also saved concert tickets!

Poetry can also be regarded as the creative probabilistics of natural human language.

Your understanding of music goes back to the theory of mimesis. The problem of interpreting the phenomenon of music depends on where you draw the line between art and reality.

An important, but somewhat distracting, observation: if one were to find a genetic predisposition to music in some people and not in others, such a theory could become the basis of Nazism, racism, xenophobia in all its possible variations, and the corresponding potential for discrimination.

You are absolutely right. Dear Dr. Po'Lat Qahhorov, the interest in the music of one's own Country increases the "love" for one's own Country in adolescents.

We care our health,stick on internet in order to teach students trough zoom,bbb and platform

Dear Giacomo! Of course in space has a lot of wave oscillations, gravity waves... You can vividly imagine that in space sounds kind of music from different waves. Maybe someone listens to this music. By the way, these waves carry information about the living and the dead planets, galaxies, star systems. Imagine the star system was lost, and the signals from her still apply in the spaces of the cosmos. There is an allegory to the legacy of the geniuses of music, art, literature, science. Geniuses have passed away, and the genius of creation started going through the century ...

Vladimir

I think silence is an intrinsic part of Eastern philosophy, which John Cage made used with great effect in 4'33''. To me, his not playing for that duration actually created an intensification of expectations that helped focused the attention of the audience like a laser beam. The video link shows how the audience squirmed in their seats while they waited.  It sort of reminds me of Beethoven's use of contrasting dynamics to convert his audience into active listeners.

I cannot answer your technical question about the bassoon, but insofar as Arne's music becoming more popular, I think that was consequent upon a tiredness of Italian music and the related theatrical changes e.g. as portrayed in Hogarth's The Enraged Musician. I recently added a new analysis of that print to my website at http://tobiassmollett.blogspot.co.nz/2015/01/william-hogarth-and-enraged-musician.html which discusses Arne and the London theatre, and it may be of interest?

Hi Philip,

you can find them and download them on my page ResearchGATE (Contributions, articles).

Saludos desde México,

Fabrizio

I think that you can find something there, on these article:

Theories of Musical Emotions and Music Origins

Aristotle listed the power of music among the unsolved problems (Aristotle, IV BCE/1995, p.1434). During the last two decades, the powers of music that previously seemed mysterious are receiving scientific foundations due to the research of scientists in several fields. Integration of this research in recent years provides evidence for the evolutionary origins and roles of music. This section provides a selection of views on the role of music in cognition from contemporary research. Current theories of musical emotions attempt to uncover this mystery by looking into its evolutionary origins. Justus and Hustler (2003) and McDermott and Houser (2003) review evidence for evolutionary origins of music. They emphasize that an unambiguous identification of genetic evolution as a source of music origins requires innateness, domain specificity for music, and uniqueness to humans (since no other animals make music in the sense humans do). The conclusions of both reviews are similar, i.e., “humans have an innate drive to make and enjoy music.” There is much suggestive evidence supporting a biological predisposition for music. Certain basic abilities for music are guided by innate constraints.

Nevertheless it is unclear that these constraints are uniquely human since they “show parallels in other domains.” It is likely that many musical abilities are not adaptations for music, but are based on more general-purpose mechanisms. There are “some intriguing clues about innate perceptual biases related to music, but probably not enough to seriously constrain evolutionary hypothesis.” “Available evidence suggests that the innate constraints in music are not specific to that domain, making it unclear, which domain(s) provided the relevant selection pressures.” “There is no compelling reason to argue categorically that music is a cognitive domain that has been shaped by natural selection.” In Nature’s series of essays on music McDermott (2008) writes: “Music is universal, a significant feature of every known culture, and yet does not serve an obvious, uncontroversial function”. Trainor (2008) argues that for higher cognitive functions, such as music, it is difficult to differentiate between adaptation and exaptation (structures originally evolved for other purposes and used today for music), since most such functions involve both “genes and experience.” Therefore the verdict on whether music is an evolutionary adaptation should be decided based on advantages for survival. Fitch (2004) comments that biological and cultural aspects of music are hopelessly entangled, and “the greatest value of an evolutionary perspective may be to provide a theoretical framework.”

In the search for evolutionary origins of music, emphasizes Huron (1999), it is necessary to look for complex multistage adaptations, built on prior adaptations, which might have evolved for several reasons. He discusses social reasons for music origins and lists several possible evolutionary advantages of music: mate selection, social cohesion, the coordination of group work, auditory development, developing auditory skills, refined motor coordination, conflict reduction, preserving stories of tribal origins. However, according to Huron, the list of possible uses of music by itself does not explain musical power over human psyche; does not explain why music and not some other, nonmusical activities have been used for these purposes. Cross (2008a,b), concentrates on evolutionary arguments specific to music. He integrates neuroscientific, cognitive, and ethnomusicological evidence and emphasizes that it is inadequate to consider music as “patterns of sounds” used by individuals for hedonic purposes. Music should be considered in the context of its uses in pre-cultural societies for social structuring, forming bonds, and group identities. According to Cross, evolution of music was based on already existing in animal world biological and genetic mechanisms. The power of language is in “its ability to present semantically decomposable propositions.” Language, because of its concreteness, on one hand enabled exchange of specific and complicated knowledge, but on the other hand could exacerbate oppositions between individual goals and transform an uncertain encounter into a conflict. Music is a communicative tool with opposite properties. It is directed at increasing a sense of ‘shared intentionality.’ Music’s major role is social, it serves as an ‘honest signal’ (that is it “reveals qualities of a signaler to a receiver”) with nonspecific goals. This property of music, “the indeterminacy of meaning or floating intentionality,” allows for individual interactions while maintaining different “goals and meanings” that may conflict. Thus music “promotes the alignment of participants’ sense of goals.”

Cross suggests that music evolved together with language rather than as its precursor. Evolution of language required a re-wiring of neural control over the vocal tract, and this control had to become more voluntary for language. At the same time a less voluntary control, originating in ancient emotional brain regions, had to be maintained for music to continue playing the role of ‘honest signal.’ Related differences in neural controls over the vocal tract between primates and humans were reviewed in Perlovsky (2005, 2006b, 2006e, 2007a, 2010a).

In hominid lineages juvenile periods lengthened. Juvenile animals, especially social primates, engage in play, which prepares them to adult lives. Play involves music-like features, thus proto-musical activity has ancient genetic roots (Cross & Morley 2008). Lengthening of juvenile periods was identified as possibly fundamental for proto-musical activity and for origin of music. Infant directed speech (IDS) has special musical (or proto-musical) qualities that are universal around the globe. This research was reviewed in Trehub (2003). She has demonstrated that IDS exhibits many similar features across different cultures. Young infants are sensitive to musical structures in human voice. Several researchers relate this sensitivity to the “coregulation of affect by parent and child” (Dissanayake, 2000), and consider IDS to be an important evolutionary mechanism of music origin. Yet, arguments presented later tell that IDS cannot be a full story of musical evolution.

Dissanayake (2008) considers music primarily as a behavioral and motivational capacity. Naturally evolving processes led to ritualization of music through formalization, repetition, exaggeration, and elaboration. Ritualization led to arousal and emotion shaping. She emphasizes that such proto-musical behavior has served as a basis for culture-specific inventions of ritual ceremonies for uniting groups as they united mother-infant pairs. She describes structural and functional resemblances between mother-infant interactions, ceremonial rituals, and adult courtship, and relates these to properties of music. All these, she proposes, suggest an evolved “amodal neural propensity in human species to respond—cognitively and emotionally—to dynamic temporal patterns produced by other humans in context of affiliation.” This is why, according to Dissanayake, proto-musical behavior produces such strong emotions, and activates brain areas involved in ancient mechanisms of reward and motivation, the same areas that are involved in satisfaction of most powerful instincts of hunger and sex.

According to Mithen (2007) Neanderthals possibly have had proto-musical ability. He argues that music and language have evolved by differentiation of early proto-human voice sounds “Hmmmm” undifferentiated proto-music-language. The development was facilitated by vertical posture and walking, which required sophisticated sensorimotor control, a sense of rhythm, and possibly ability for dancing. The differentiation of Hmmmm, he dates to after 50,000 BP. Further evolution toward music occurred for religious purposes, which he identifies with supernatural beings. Currently music is not needed, it has been replaced by language, it only exists as inertia, as a difficult to get rid off remnant of the primordial Hmmmm. An exception could be religious practice, where music is needed since we do not know how to communicate with gods. I disagree with dismissing Bach, Beethoven, or Shostakovich in this way; as well as with the implied characterization of religion, and discuss these doubts later. Mithen relates music to emotions due to its presence in original Hmmmm. Songs recombine language and music into original Hmmmm; however Mithen gives no fundamental reason or need for this recombination. While addressing language in details, Mithen (and other scientists as well) give no explanation for why human learn language by about age of five, but the corresponding mastery of cognition takes the rest of lifetime; steps toward explaining this are taken in Perlovsky (2004; 2006d; 2009a,b; 2010a) and summarized later.

Mithen’s view on religion contradicts the documented evidence for relatively late proliferation of supernatural beings in religious practice (Jaynes, 1976), and to mathematical and cognitive explanations for the role of religiously sublime in workings of the mind (Perlovsky, 2006a,d; Levine & Perlovsky, 2008a).

Juslin and Västfjäll (2008) analyze mechanisms of musical emotions. They discuss a number of neural mechanisms involved with emotions and different meanings implied for the word ‘emotion’. I would mention here just two of these. First, consider most often discussed basic emotions; we have specific words for these emotions: fear, sexual-love, jealousy, thirst… Mechanisms of these emotions are related to satisfaction or dissatisfaction of basic instinctual bodily needs such as survival, procreation, a need for water balance in the body… An ability of music to express basic emotions unambiguously is a separate field of study. Second, consider the complex or ‘musical’ emotions (sometimes called ‘continuous’), which we ‘hear’ in music and for which we do not necessarily have special words. Mechanisms and role of these emotions in the mind and cultural evolution are subjects of this paper.

Six different types of music, fulfilling six fundamental needs, and eliciting six basic emotions are considered by Levitin (2008). He suggests that music has originated from animal cries and it functions today essentially in the same way, communicating emotions. It is more difficult, he writes, “to fake sincerity in music than in spoken language.” The reason that music evolved this way as an ‘honest signal’ because it “simply” co-evolved with brains “precisely to preserve this property.” Given the fact that even as simple animals as birds can fake their cries (Lorenz, 1981) I have my doubts about this “simply;” further doubts arise as soon as we think about actors, singers, and poets, not only contemporary professionals, but also those existing in traditional societies (Meyer, Palmer, & Mazo, 1998) since time immemorial. This suggestion, it seems, has not been informed by views of Jung (1921) that some people better manipulate their emotions than their thoughts, or by the current psychological studies on emotional intellect (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, 2008).

Mathematical modeling of the mechanisms of music perception and musical emotions was considered in (Purwins, Herrera, Grachten, Hazan, Marxer, & Serra, 2008a,b; Coutinho & Cangelosi, 2009). These modeling approaches can be used to obtain and verify predictions of various theories.

In the following sections we discuss mechanisms of music evolution from differentiation of original proto-music-language to its contemporary refined states. Discussions of mechanisms that evolved music from IDS to Bach and Beatles in previously proposed theories are lacking or unconvincing. Why do we need the virtual infinity of “musical emotions” that we hear in music (e.g. in classical Western music)? Dissanayake (2008) suggests that this path went through ceremonial ritualization, due to “a basic motivation to achieve some level of control over events…” However, she does not explain why this motivation is “basic” and where it came from; she does not discuss why humans have these motivation in principally different ways than animals. She continues: if “for five or even ten centuries… music has been emancipated from its two-million year history and its adaptive roots says more about the recency and aberrance of modernity…” Essentially Dissanayake does not to consider what modern people call music. Cross & Morley (2008) appropriately disagree: “…it would be impossible to remove music without removing many of the abilities of social cognition that are fundamental to being human.” They conclude that “there are further facets to the evolutionary story.” This paper discusses a novel hypothesis that clarifies some of these remaining “further facets” and suggests a fundamental role of musical emotions in cognition and evolution.

These article is from these site:

Music is present in all cultures since prehistoric times, but still it is not clear what the source of gratification that we feel listening. Two newly published studies now contribute to shed light on the brain mechanisms involved in the joy of music.

As you can read in "Science", Valorie N. Salimpoor and colleagues at the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University have analyzed the neural processes of volunteers who listened to the first few songs. To give way to the experimenters to assess the degree of pleasure evoked by the music, the subjects participated in a kind of auction in which they could make an offer to listen to a particular song.

"Viewing the activity of a particular brain area, the nucleus accumbens, which is involved in reward, it was possible to reliably predict whether subjects would have offered money to listen to a song," says Salimpoor. The involvement of the nucleus accumbens confirms recent indications of the fact that the emotional effect of music would activate mechanisms of expectation and anticipation of a stimulus desirable, mediated by the neurotransmitter dopamine when it comes to a song already familiar, the mechanism of leave would be evoked mental anticipation of the passages most enjoyable. In the search for Salimpoor colleagues, however, the music was not known, but functional magnetic resonance imaging showed that the activated areas and dopaminergic mediation were the same as those of well-known songs. The cause, according to the researchers, is an "implicit knowledge" of music, obtained over the years and internalize the structure of the music characteristic of a certain culture.

The activity of the nucleus accumbens, also, is not isolated, but also involves the auditory cortex, which stores information on the sounds and the music during the test, as the piece was rewarding, the more intense was the cross-communication between the different brain regions. This result supports the idea that the ability to appreciate music refers not only to the emotional aspects, but also on assessments of cognitive character.

Still on the subject of brain reactions to music, Vinod Menon and colleagues at Stanford University School of Medicine, authors of an article published in the "European Journal of Neuroscience," have shown that listening to classical music evokes a unique pattern of activation of areas of the brain in spite of the differences between people.

The team recorded the activation of different brain regions of volunteers who listened to the music of William Boyce, an English composer of the eighteenth century, or pieces of "pseudo-music", ie sequences of auditory stimuli obtained by altering the songs Boyce with appropriate algorithms by the computer. The reaserchers identified a distributed network of brain structures whose activity levels followed a similar pattern in all subjects while listening to music, but not in that of the pseudo-music.

"In our study we have shown for the first time that, despite individual differences, classical music evokes in subjects other than one very consistent pattern of activity in various structures of the frontoparietal cortex, including those involved in the planning of movement, memory and attention, "says Menon. These regions, in particular, participated each with its own activation rate to the development of what was being heard, helping to make sense, with its own specific contribution to the overall structure of the music.

Particularly curious is the preferential activation of the centers of motor planning in response to the music but not the pseudo-music: according to the authors, it is a "neural correlate" of the spontaneous tendency to accompany listening to music with body movements, as in the dance, or simply clapping his hands.

I red with particular interest these two papers which well summarize the mucic/brain interaction. And let me understand what is happening when I am listening to a favourite music. I do not know whether similar mechanisms are activated when I enjoy to  write, play and sing my songs. Many of you know that this is one of my hobbies.

Jacobo, la mejor fuente del epitafio de Seikilos se encuentra en E. Pôhlmann y M. L. West, Documentos de la música de la Grecia antigua: las melodías y fragmentos que han perdurado. Oxford: Clarendon Press 2001 (reimpr. 2009).

I think that, in respect to what is discussed here, music can be a means to discover and understand what others think or perceive and thus reflect in their musical acts. I guess we do tend to listen to music we got exposed to when we were young by mere exposure effect (i.e. it did not harm us, so it was all in all acceptable) or because it let us discover something(s) that we thought could not be expressed otherwise or at least in music. As mentioned earlier, there is definitely a time component in the development of the personal appreciation of music, and group or peer polarization of opinion may play a significant role mostly in early times -- think of collective concert hysteria for teenagers -- as an aid to integrate within circles or even put up some identity of sort. Later on I think we tend more and more to stand on our own and evolve taste according to habit, boredom, specialization, sophistication and other possible twists without much caring for others' tastes except for putting them up when in socially aggregating situations.

I played in an orchestra with a left-handed violinist, who was also a left-handed violist and a left-handed 'cellist. It is odd to see a left-handed players motions be the mirror image of his stand partner in an orchestra! You can see this left-handed violinist in the following three videos. He is tucked away on the inside of the last desk of the first violins. His head is just to the right of the tubular bells. I am afraid that the video does not show him very well and you only get short glimpses. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDuUlO2Xs_s&list=PL066ECE40B2A16016