Origins of Music

[futurezoologist]

Has anyone thought about why music sounds so good compared to other sounds like a chainsaw for example?
I thought that making sounds together may have brought communities together in the cave man days and so proved to be advantagious to populations and so the our brain has evolved to enjoy it more and more but am not too happy with how that process would have started.

Has anyone read anything about this or have any thoughts?

Thanks,
Joe

[Eous]

I would imagine that the success of music has to do with its use of simple tones. human hearing (and likely most animals) is set up based on tone, which is a term for the frequency of the sound. the membrane in the ear is set up from one end which vibrates due to lower frequencies to the other which is sensetive to higher frequencies. the sound from a chainsaw is more complex and usually shakes the entire membrane, i believe opening all the channels for reception as i recall the sense of hearing working (not that I have anything against the sound a chainsaw makes). I would think that the sounds of music would be barely related, if at all, evolutionarily, to just sounds that brought early humans together (something like the beginnings of language), because bird songs are appealing without knowing any meaning behind them [at least I think so]. the ability to create simple tones seems pretty rare in the animal kingdom (and the other kingdoms for that matter). It's possible that the tones themselves and their pattern of activating sensory receptors and thus brain cells and pathways is in some way connected to the pleasing quality of music.

you should try to find out what information there is on other animals (ones that can't produce music) appreciating it, reacting possitively or negatively. cause, if say frogs or mice have a fasination with Mozart then humans connection with music probably evolved previous to humans ability to make music. And then the question would become about how Music evolved as an art form in human society. Wolves can sometimes achieve simple tones and seemingly love to brag about it, but they can't make a whole range, and don't use tools like humans do - how come they haven't worked out more of them, is it need based?

[futurezoologist]

Hmm, thanks for your thoughts there Eous - some testing on some of our evolutionary cousins would be very valuable as you suggest.

[LeoPol]

There is opinion that language neanderthal man consisted of vowel sound only so they spoke otherwise, than we that is to say - sang. Therefore beside them otherwise will develop the speech device and otherwise develop is healled brain responsible for speech.
Here is, there were timeses... Go somewhere mountain, but here - a concerto: Tirol chant in the best tradition neanderthal huntsman schools!
The Cells (the neurons) in organism too communicate between itself inflexion on amplitude, but, possible, and on frequency. That is to say - a language to tunes:

http://translate.google.ru/translate?hl ... ge_id%3D82
(http://spacenoology.agro.name/?page_id=82)

Excuse me me my bad english

[Darby]

Humans also like recognizable patterns (even nonrecognizable - we see them even when they're not there), which might explain some of the attraction.

[david23]

on the physiological level there have been a lot of research on how music reduces stress. There was a paper I read a couple years ago about how classic music was able to reduce stress levels in women through an elevation of several hormones. So yes, music does have some direct impact on our bodies. If anyone want to read more into it I will be glad to help if you find an article on it,

[Jonl1408]

Have any of you heard of how the Fibonacci sequence correlates with music , very interesting. http://www.therosedress.com/picupload/I ... 95pic1.jpg
whenever the Fibonacci sequence is used in an object, it looks more pleasing to the eye, and according to this site to the ear too. Sounds pretty interesting.