 Music and the Mind
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Jul. 8th, 2009 @ 02:12 pm 
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In complement to my current (for some months now) obsession with music, I picked up a copy of Musicophilia, by Dr Oliver Sacks. So far I've barely begun reading it, having started on the preface, but it starts with an interesting point I've never really thought about before:
Music has no evolutionary benefit to humans, no real practical virtues to speak of. It's an odd odd thing, almost unique to humans (in that there are some songbirds which sing duets and so on, but that's about it for music in the animal kingdom) yet universal across human societies and cultures. Every human group has music, musical instruments started being invented very early... it's like music has always been with us, is what sets us apart from the animals... and yet, there's no good reason for it.
But music matters. Music can transport us. Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, as it is said, although it is also often incorrectly said "beast" as well.
Some might suggest that music is not for all humanity, because you have to be able to hear it to appreciate it.
To which I say: SEZ YOU, hypothetical people!
First, consider the great composers who were deaf. Beethoven, for example. As Terry Pratchett put it, deafness doesn't stop composers from hearing the music, it only stops them hearing the distractions. But of course, Beethoven went deaf in his late twenties.
Big deal.
Allow me to point out the existences of:
1) Shawn Dale Barnett. Deaf drummer.
2) Beethoven's Nightmare, genuinely awesome rock band - all of whom are deaf.
Unsurprisingly, Beethoven's Nightmare rock some heavy drum and bass, because it's the rhythm and the vibrations that deaf people feel - the point being, it's still there. Maybe a deaf person would struggle to get much enjoyment out of a piccolo, but on the other hand, so do lots of hearing people. (ObMusicJokes here.)
There are, of course, many other deaf musicians and dancers. Those are random easy examples.
(I personally would probably be highly reluctant to attend a rock concert intended for deaf people, but then, these days I wouldn't go to rock concerts intended for hearing people either without an awful lot of incentive and some high-quality earplugs, and not just because pain issues cause crowds to make me extra nervous - due to past acoustic shock injury, sounds above certain frequences, at volume, cause me acute pain in and of themselves. Rock concerts are too loud for me, but that's just me. And no, I don't think becoming artificially deaf in one ear would help. I suspect I'd keep the pain but lose the benefit of actually being able to hear out of my left ear.)
Music is the unique birthright of humanity. Dr Sacks said in his interview on the Daily Show that rhythm is deep-set in the human brain - even after things like strokes, the sense of rhythm remains, and music can persist when language has been lost. Animals don't have a sense of rhythm - you can't teach a dog to dance.
So the question is, why? Many different answers have been proposed. The one some scientists would become instantly ragewaddish at (I'm thinking PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, et al) is of course: God did it. Music is the divine gift to humanity.
Personally, that's an option I neither believe nor discount, but it's a lovely thought, to me.
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A question that popped into my head (and one which I don't know the answer to): do any of our primate cousins make music of some kind?
What about the other intelligent species (dolphins and whales, I'm looking at you!)?
Dang it, I can't edit -
What about birds? Do they ever sing just for the pleasure of it? I'm pretty sure I see them flying sometimes just for pleasure.
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| Date: |
July 9th, 2009 06:52 am (UTC) |
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Leaping in after reading your journal on DW
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This is a really good question. I'm guessing humans make music that animals (mostly) don't in the same way humans make pictures and sculpture, and for that matter, language and writing, as representational and symbolic communication. Even so, music is a lot more abstract than most communication, yet as you say it means something to most humans.
From what I've seen in surveys of different cultures' music, rhythm is the most important element in many, and it's pretty clear that music with a strong rhythm for dancing was (and is) a large part of European-heritage music. The major-minor harmonic system in European music grew out of Church music, which originated as mnemonic chants that were elaborated over time -- about 10 centuries of time. You could call that a gift from God, but I prefer to think of it as human endeavor for one of the many reasons human do things, religion, and in this case, religion as a political institution. In any case, secular music developed separately as well. The emphasis on sung music, leading to harmony and counterpoint, may not be unique to Europe (those overview surveys of other cultures' music weren't very comprehensive, so I can't be sure), but I don't know of another musical tradition that developed so many grouped orchestral instruments that "sing" melodic lines. My impression is that non-European instrumental music is often made up of mostly percussive, if tonal, sound, so what you say about rhythm as basic seems right.
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