The Origins of Music

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and Challenging Approaches to a Difficult Topic
Review: "The Origins of Music" derives from a 1997 international workshop of the Swedish Institute for Biomusicology. The result is a fascinating journey into a vast world of ideas, with interplay, disagreement and contradiction abounding. Few readers will have the background to move easily through all these articles. However, wading through the quagmire of scientific writing rewards the reader with some remarkable insights. Little is actually proven, and the editors could have done more to reconcile or enumerate the contradictions between some of the approaches. But for the most part, the writers are sufficiently aware of the difficulties involved in applying their specific research results to general theories about the origins of music.

An introductory chapter discusses the comparatively new field of biomusicology, with its tripartite subdivision into evolutionary musicology, neuromusicology, and comparative musicology. The issue, which will command much of the book, of whether certain features of music are biological or cultural is raised. Unfortunately, all too often the weight is given to the biological answer without overwhelming evidence.

Another significant question is the relevance of animal "song". Only those working directly in the field of animal song approach this with caution--none argue anything stronger than a "convergent evolution" between animal and human music. To apply the terms "song" and "music" to aural animal communications is to raise a whole host of related but probably irrelevant associations--those of art, aesthetics, etc. Where music is so broadly defined as to include animal sounds (which can indeed be "musical" and quite lovely for us to listen to without being classified as "music") these associations muddy the water, and all too often the contributors simply accept these problematic issues. One writer even wallows in them--in the book's final article, composer Mache absurdly claims that birdsong can ONLY be explained as an aesthetic act. We unquestionably have very limited understanding of how even the human brain processes our own music; that we have even less understanding of how animals perceive their own sounds and how their brains process them makes any statement about any complicated animal response speculative at best. Slater's chapter is noteworthy as he addresses this very issue of relevance with commendable caution: "Considering only songbirds...there are close to 4,000 species....It would thus not be surprising if almost any characteristic found in human music were discovered in one or a few of them. But such similarities are likely to be coincidental..."

Articles on human evolution of musical potential are fascinating explorations of real evidence. Although of course music does not fossilize, these scientists have taken various ingenious approaches from the thorough examination of a Paleolithic bone flute to the casting of brains inside fossil skulls to examine their gross anatomy, and the results are couched in appropriate language. Richman, in his wildly speculative theory of music origins, resorts to quite poor reasoning ("...complexity always comes from previous, but different complexity." and "...language always comes from previous language."). Similar points are articulated more thoughtfully in the subsequent chapter by Merker. Equally intriguing is Miller's, in which he argues convincingly that a Darwinian approach to the issue of musical evolution allows only the single explanation of sexual selection. His colleague Todd supports this hypothesis in his article on computer modeling of musical behavior. In perhaps the most interesting contradiction in the book, Dissanayake takes a totally different approach, arguing equally convincingly (although smothered in jargon) that musical evolution most likely occurred as an outgrowth of mother-infant interaction. Finally, Freeman suggests that music evolved to fulfil a sociological role of group bonding. These four articles, by Freeman, Dissanayake, Todd, and Merker are superbly argued and maintain the highest standards of intellectual rigor; curiously they come to wildly different but equally reasonable conclusions on the origins of music, thereby highlighting the difficulties of the issues.

In the final section, the musicians get their turn, and as a composer myself I'm sorry to say that my colleagues' results are relatively disappointing. Trehub attempts to find musical universals by studying the behavior of infants. This leads her to the conclusion that "small-integer frequency ratios" are "preferable" (such as 2:1 and 3:2--the perfect octave and fifth) to large-integer ratios (the ONLY example she gives is 45:32--the tritone). She concludes that "dissonances" are not naturally a part of an inherent universal musicality, but her argument shows no apparent understanding of the issues. Imberty's contribution is largely a defense of Lerdahl and Jackendoff's Generative Theory of Tonal Music, and although he makes some excellent points, especially about atonal music, the reader unfamiliar with Lerdahl and Jackendoff's work will find little of value here. The eminent ethnomusicologist Nettl suggests a number of likely musical universals, some of which I must contend against: among them are the presence of an undefined cadential element (as music exists in time and must end, this seems to me inevitable and inconsequential unless further defined), and, that music exists only as particular songs, compositions, etc--that "one does not ever just sing or play, as for example, one may simply dance, without performing a particular dance composition." (wildly incorrect, as any jazzer, mother or Deadhead will attest!) However, Nettl raises valid concerns about the concept of musical universals--I regretted that his contribution wasn't much earlier in the book as it seemed so appropriate to so many of the claims made within. Finally, composer Mache provides what is surely the least intellectually rigorous, most romantically speculative chapter. Mache based much of his workshop contribution on recorded comparisons between various human and animal musics to which the reader has no exposure. It is a real pity that for this article and several others no CD was included. Regardless, Mache's concept of a truly universal biological music including an aesthetic sense ignores historical fact and convergent evolution in favor of an interspecies brotherhood of musicians. However attractive the idea, the International Federation of Musicians is unlikely to start issuing cards to avian and simian members any time soon

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and Challenging Approaches to a Difficult Topic
Review: "The Origins of Music" derives from a 1997 international workshop of the Swedish Institute for Biomusicology. The result is a fascinating journey into a vast world of ideas, with interplay, disagreement and contradiction abounding. Few readers will have the background to move easily through all these articles. However, wading through the quagmire of scientific writing rewards the reader with some remarkable insights. Little is actually proven, and the editors could have done more to reconcile or enumerate the contradictions between some of the approaches. But for the most part, the writers are sufficiently aware of the difficulties involved in applying their specific research results to general theories about the origins of music.

An introductory chapter discusses the comparatively new field of biomusicology, with its tripartite subdivision into evolutionary musicology, neuromusicology, and comparative musicology. The issue, which will command much of the book, of whether certain features of music are biological or cultural is raised. Unfortunately, all too often the weight is given to the biological answer without overwhelming evidence.

Another significant question is the relevance of animal "song". Only those working directly in the field of animal song approach this with caution--none argue anything stronger than a "convergent evolution" between animal and human music. To apply the terms "song" and "music" to aural animal communications is to raise a whole host of related but probably irrelevant associations--those of art, aesthetics, etc. Where music is so broadly defined as to include animal sounds (which can indeed be "musical" and quite lovely for us to listen to without being classified as "music") these associations muddy the water, and all too often the contributors simply accept these problematic issues. One writer even wallows in them--in the book's final article, composer Mache absurdly claims that birdsong can ONLY be explained as an aesthetic act. We unquestionably have very limited understanding of how even the human brain processes our own music; that we have even less understanding of how animals perceive their own sounds and how their brains process them makes any statement about any complicated animal response speculative at best. Slater's chapter is noteworthy as he addresses this very issue of relevance with commendable caution: "Considering only songbirds...there are close to 4,000 species....It would thus not be surprising if almost any characteristic found in human music were discovered in one or a few of them. But such similarities are likely to be coincidental..."

Articles on human evolution of musical potential are fascinating explorations of real evidence. Although of course music does not fossilize, these scientists have taken various ingenious approaches from the thorough examination of a Paleolithic bone flute to the casting of brains inside fossil skulls to examine their gross anatomy, and the results are couched in appropriate language. Richman, in his wildly speculative theory of music origins, resorts to quite poor reasoning ("...complexity always comes from previous, but different complexity." and "...language always comes from previous language."). Similar points are articulated more thoughtfully in the subsequent chapter by Merker. Equally intriguing is Miller's, in which he argues convincingly that a Darwinian approach to the issue of musical evolution allows only the single explanation of sexual selection. His colleague Todd supports this hypothesis in his article on computer modeling of musical behavior. In perhaps the most interesting contradiction in the book, Dissanayake takes a totally different approach, arguing equally convincingly (although smothered in jargon) that musical evolution most likely occurred as an outgrowth of mother-infant interaction. Finally, Freeman suggests that music evolved to fulfil a sociological role of group bonding. These four articles, by Freeman, Dissanayake, Todd, and Merker are superbly argued and maintain the highest standards of intellectual rigor; curiously they come to wildly different but equally reasonable conclusions on the origins of music, thereby highlighting the difficulties of the issues.

In the final section, the musicians get their turn, and as a composer myself I'm sorry to say that my colleagues' results are relatively disappointing. Trehub attempts to find musical universals by studying the behavior of infants. This leads her to the conclusion that "small-integer frequency ratios" are "preferable" (such as 2:1 and 3:2--the perfect octave and fifth) to large-integer ratios (the ONLY example she gives is 45:32--the tritone). She concludes that "dissonances" are not naturally a part of an inherent universal musicality, but her argument shows no apparent understanding of the issues. Imberty's contribution is largely a defense of Lerdahl and Jackendoff's Generative Theory of Tonal Music, and although he makes some excellent points, especially about atonal music, the reader unfamiliar with Lerdahl and Jackendoff's work will find little of value here. The eminent ethnomusicologist Nettl suggests a number of likely musical universals, some of which I must contend against: among them are the presence of an undefined cadential element (as music exists in time and must end, this seems to me inevitable and inconsequential unless further defined), and, that music exists only as particular songs, compositions, etc--that "one does not ever just sing or play, as for example, one may simply dance, without performing a particular dance composition." (wildly incorrect, as any jazzer, mother or Deadhead will attest!) However, Nettl raises valid concerns about the concept of musical universals--I regretted that his contribution wasn't much earlier in the book as it seemed so appropriate to so many of the claims made within. Finally, composer Mache provides what is surely the least intellectually rigorous, most romantically speculative chapter. Mache based much of his workshop contribution on recorded comparisons between various human and animal musics to which the reader has no exposure. It is a real pity that for this article and several others no CD was included. Regardless, Mache's concept of a truly universal biological music including an aesthetic sense ignores historical fact and convergent evolution in favor of an interspecies brotherhood of musicians. However attractive the idea, the International Federation of Musicians is unlikely to start issuing cards to avian and simian members any time soon

Rating:
Summary: Some good info, but hard to find it
Review: After an 18 page introduction to biomusicology the reader is left to sift through the papers of around 25 experts in this field. Quality ranges widely as do the topics. There is some worthwhile information in this book but finding it may not be worth your time. Nonetheless, it is a positive step forward.

Rating:
Summary: Imperfect, but a welcome catalyst for a new field
Review: Cognitive science has put an evolutionary spin on everything from language to spatial reasoning, and now it is time for music to take its turn. What is it about the human brain that makes us musical and where did it come from? These are two of the central questions of The Origins of Music and the emerging field of evolutionary musicology. Readers interested in cognitive evolution will no doubt be intrigued by such a timely volume, but they should also be aware of the book's flaws.

In the first section, the authors take a comparative ethological approach, spotlighting their own research in birdsong or primate vocal behavior and usually summing up with an extremely speculative and/or vague connection with the supposed homologies and analogies in human cognition. The larger issue of what kinds of information such comparative approaches can tell us about the evolution of human cognition is barely scratched.

The next two sections move the focus specifically to the evolution of music in humans, its adaptive value, and its relationship with language and social behavior. Although the topics are closer to what I had envisioned in an evolutionary musicology book than were those of the earlier chapters, the rigor of argument declines into a unique combination of cognitive imprecision and evolutionary storytelling that would give both Noam Chomsky and Stephen Jay Gould nightmares. To be fair, much of this is not a fault of the authors but is rather a reflection of a field in its infancy.

The final section on innate musical competencies and modularity contained some of the kinds of argument that I had been expecting to find throughout the book. Just as Steven Pinker's arguments in the Language Instinct would not be worth considering without the prior arguments of Chomsky for specialized innate mechanisms for language, it is hard to take seriously the claims about music's adaptive value made in the middle portion of the book without first considering what kinds of nativist arguments can be made for music. Sadly, the most comprehensive work on this subject to date, Lerdahl and Jackendoff's A Generative Theory of Tonal Music is cited only by two contributors and applied relevantly only by one.

All of these criticisms do not alter the fact that this book is a welcome first step in a fascinating new subdiscipline of cognitive science. The Origins of Music will no doubt be a catalyst for more research in evolutionary musicology, but don't prepare yourself for an intellectual tour de force just yet.

Rating:
Summary: Hodgepodge
Review: It is a measure of the pioneering nature of this book that its contributions lack any synergy. What we have here are specialists from a wide variety of fields attempting to apply their expertise to a new and undeveloped field. The results are all over the map. Some of the papers strain to be relevant; a few are major steps forward. Some of the papers are badly written; I had to re-read every sentence in one of them. I do not recommend this book to any reader seeking cogent answers to the problem of the origin of music; the truth is, we don't have those answers yet. This is a book for readers willing to accept the uncertainties at the edge of our knowledge, willing to plow through indirect approaches and early clumsy efforts. It is a purely academic book, with all the strengths and weaknesses implicit to that style of writing. In any case, it remains the best effort we have in this direction, by virtue of being the only effort we have in this direction.

Rating:
Summary: Landmark
Review: The number of books devoted to language evolution could now fill many bookshelves. So it is very exciting to see the first book ever devoted to the question of music evolution. This book is unquestionably a landmark and will be discussed for many years to come. Evolutionary musicologists will certainly have a lot to learn from their cousins in the language field but they will also get the chance to explore important new ground not covered by them. The book deals with animal song, general issues in human evolution, different proposals for the evolution of music and a final section about universals in music. I was pleased to see renowned thinkers like Derek Bickerton, Peter Marler and Dean Falk writing about music for the first time, and doing it so cogently. That, in itself, is worth the cover price. The book fulfills its promise of opening up an interdisciplinary dialog on the subject of music origins. The editors can be congratulated for bringing together an international group of contributors; no fewer than 8 countries are represented in the contributors list-a rare occurrence in such edited volumes. Despite this, the writing style is consistently high and with the exception of a few typos, the book was quite easy to navigate. Some of the chapters, like Miller's chapter on sexual selection reflect current "hot" topic in evolutionary psychology, and will no doubt lead to lots of discussions. Other chapters, such as those on universals, touch on topics that have been dormant or forgotten in musicology. It is exciting for me to see musical universals being discussed again after so many years of silence. The section called Theories of Music Origins will, no doubt, spur future thinking on the topic. This book is a strong beginning and I highly recommend this book to people who really want to delve into something completely fresh and new. They will not be disappointed.