Does music have an evolutionary purpose/origin?

[MrFrosty]

I once read that music originated to promote social bonding and ties within groups/tribes. If you read the following link, this would approximate the views of Robin Dunbar.

Link: http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/archives/000178.html

Anyway, does anybody have any views on how and why music originated? What purpose does it fulfill within a cultural context? Memes? Or is it just a happy accident like Steve Pinker proposes?

[travc]

Probably all of the above, as usual.

There is almost definately a happy accident in our aural recognition system that makes musical tones and rythem easily recognizable. Actually, not so much an accident as the natural way an auditory pattern recognition system works. People like hearing sounds that fit musically... probably another byproduct of the sensory system.

So people having a precondition making musical like sounds something they like, the social evolution stuff takes off. Certainly music is used to promote tribal coherency. It is used for other sorts of communication as well. We even have sexual selection chiming in. These evolved adaptive uses of music exist without a doubt, but wheter they constitute the "origin" depends on what specifically one has in mind.

[RBH]

An earlier thread (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=39786) on this same topic.

RBH

[braces_for_impact]

It was invented so one could do the "Ha! Ha! I'm right and you're wrong funky chicken victory dance" without looking obscenely silly.

This is important across the globe regardless of culture. It is especially useful when your sports team wins, to degrade your significant other, or when winning a debate against a theist. :D

[JLK]

Condensed snippet from the neurophysiologist William Calvin on the evolution of music...
The evolution of music involves grammar-like "structured strings", automatic subconscious prediction, the emotions associated with sounds and the mathematical patterns in neural nets.

1. The neural net in the brain involves spatiotemporal patterns of cellular activity – not unlike what constitutes a musical melody or musical scale. Movements are produced by a barrage of perfectly timed nerve impulse patterns to different muscles, whether the limbs or the larynx. Each muscle is activated at a somewhat different time, often only briefly. So a neural pattern causing a movement is a spatiotemporal pattern not unlike a musical refrain. Even for a single muscle twitch, all the involved neurons do not fire simultaneously like a chord, but instead like a short musical melody with chords and individual notes. So too, all our sensations are also patterns spread out in time and space. Higher functions inevitably involve large overlapping committees of cells, whose actions are spread out in time, a more difficult concept to grasp. But some patterns in music may echo the basic mathematical relationships between these neural assemblies.

2. As far as the actual sounds themselves in evolutionary history, a preference for pure overtones or harmonics would be selected for as recognition signals, since these can be detected over longer distances then non-harmonics of the same energy (demonstrated by birds) generated by mothers/infants, prospective mates, or warning cries from other members of the species.

3. Another aspect possibly selected for is prediction -- making a guess that discovers some new underlying order. "Guessing well" neatly covers gauging the distance from a predator, correctly predicting what's likely to happen next, finding the solution to a problem, happening upon an appropriate analogy, creating a pleasing harmony or witty reply. In listening to a narrative or melody, we routinely guess what comes next, even unconsciously. Getting a crying child to fill in the last word of a familiar song line is an amazingly effective distraction, seen in many cultures. Subconscious prediction is often why a joke's punch line or a P.D.Q. Bach musical parody brings you up short – you're surprised by the mismatch. The possiblities for sexual selection for demonstrating skills in this vital ability are apparent.

4. Besides words into sentences, we combine notes into melodies, steps into dances, and narratives into games with procedural rules. Natural selection for the "structured strings" of improved grammar augments the neural machinery and incidentally/secondarily serves to expand other abilities.

[As an aside, As improbable as it initially seems, neurophysiologists believe that planning ballistic movements, like throwing and hammering, may relate to the "structured strings" of language. For example, apraxic aphasics (persons with a type of brain injury) demonstrate that oral-facial sequencing and hand-arm sequencing use the same neural machinery. If the same "structured strings" core facility is used for the mouth/larynx as is used for ballistic hand movements, then improvements in manual dexterity might promote language or vice versa.]

But I've segregated too much. Mammalian brain enlargements tend not to come piecemeal. In asking how the neural machinery for music evolved, any one of the underlying mechanisms could be driven by natural selection and so incidentally benefit the others.

What is the result? A free lunch: music."Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how our brains work.
We listen to J.S. Bach transfixed because we are listening to a human mind.
Our own." -–--Lewis Thomas

And then there's Hovind... transfixed by P.D.Q. (http://www.schickele.com/shoppe/pdqrec/short.htm)

[Tubby Lardmore]

I realize this is a bit tangential to the thrust of the thread, but I have heard people say that their pets enjoy certain TV programs. Some go so far as to leave the TV on when they leave the house, so the dog/cat/bird can watch. But I have never heard any anecdotes about a pet showing interest or pleasure in a purely-audio music program (radio or CD player, not a TV screen). Am I just displaying my ignorance? Maybe some of you have such stories?

[perfessor]

I read somewhere - damned if I can remember - someone had recorded and analysed the howls of coyotes and wolves. He found that if one wolf started howling, another would join in at a different pitch. If there were two wolves at the same pitch, one would modulate to a different one - singing harmony, as it were. He theorized that this gave information to a dispersed pack regarding how many individuals were in a certain area. That is, if all were singing the same note, that information would not be there.

Interesting animals, those lupus pavarrotius.

[MissJaymeKat]

I realize this is a bit tangential to the thrust of the thread, but I have heard people say that their pets enjoy certain TV programs. Some go so far as to leave the TV on when they leave the house, so the dog/cat/bird can watch. But I have never heard any anecdotes about a pet showing interest or pleasure in a purely-audio music program (radio or CD player, not a TV screen). Am I just displaying my ignorance? Maybe some of you have such stories?


I used to have a cat who loved Enya, but hated U2. I could tell because when Enya was playing, Stinky would lie down right between my speakers and purr and otherwise appear content until the cd was over. I'd stick in a U2 cd, and she'd give me this "I hate you" look and then would get as far away from the sound as possible.

[Tubby Lardmore]

Thanks for the feedback. :p

I am reminded that our family dog way back when would howl along with sirens. Whether that counts as music appreciation, I can't tell.