[Graphicism]

I was watching a video where Richard Dawkins interviews Steven Pinker for "The Genius of Charles Darwin" a UK Channel 4 TV program in which they talk about Darwin and how our brain has developed with emotional responses, the most interesting aspect I found was music and why we enjoy it.

It went something like this...

Music is a byproduct of other adaptations, perhaps our sensitivity to speech; a harmonically rich sound that the brain has to analyze into it's frequency components in order to understand speech. Perhaps a byproduct of emotional calls that go way back in primate evolutionary history; sighs, moans, laughs, crys and so on. Possibly a byproduct of motor control; keeping your bodily actions at a constant optimal rhythm. Maybe what music does is combine bits and pieces of all these other parts of the brain, packs them into a super normal stimulus, something that actually presses our buttons harder than anything in the natural environment would and we enjoy it.

In other words: In order to analyze speech the brain has to have certain mechanisms for taking frequencies and analyzing harmonics. These same brain mechanisms can't help but being super normally stimulated by pure tones or notes that stay the same for a long time.

I just find this fascinating, what do you think?

+ YouTube Video​

ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.

 

[roadtonowhere08]

Great thread!

I have also been fascinated why humans are so drawn to music in a very emotional way.

I found this link that suggests that animals respond to music as long as it is something that sounds similar to what they would hear from their own species: Monkeys Don’t Go For Music — Unless It’s Made for Them | Wired Science | Wired.com

The link perhaps helps better nail down the idea that music is very relative in that it has to be of the type that stimulates the right areas of the brain to receive a positive (or negative) reaction. It would be interesting to see if taste in music is a function of nature or nurture (or both).

 

[catachresis]

Music makes me feel like throwing bones at the monolith.

 

[Benaiir]

Thoughts while watching...

Pretty close and interesting, but I'd deny the hypothesis of music helping our ability to defer from ah and ooh. Some people hardly listen to music. Really missing out, IMO. The short British guy is annoying. He should talk much less. I can't bring myself to watch the whole hour.

 

[CandlePower]

I would guess that the earliest evolutionarily important aspect of music would have been rhythm. The rhythm of electrons circling. The rhythm of planetary revolutions, of day and night, of changing seasons. The rhythm of breathing. The beating of the heart.

The songs of birds have to have been a big contributor. Maybe early carnivorous mammals came to love the sound of birds as they became associated with the potential for lunch, the early version of KFC.

Lakota Sioux songs are intensely powerful, primal vehicles for the conveyance of meaning and feeling, especially the really old ones. Many years ago on a summer morning , I wandered out of my log cabin into the yard. There was a big bumblebee floating around and I remember being immediately struck by the similarity of its sound to the old school Sioux songs.

In same said cabin, I used to get woken up by singing coyotes in the wee hours of the morning. They'd come near the cabin and commence their happy reverie. It's a beautiful, haunting thing that reaches way back and touches some wild and primitive part of you. Sometimes it was just random yowls and yelps, but other times it was organized with one calling out and others responding in a loose fashion.

Or how about the rhythm of bugs on a summer night. The rise and fall of the tides or waves breaking on the sand. The list is kind of endless. The music of life is everywhere.

I used to sit out on the porch with my guitar and play. One day a squirrel, a robin, and a grasshopper all stopped what they were doing, came close, and stood looking intently at me while I played. On more than one occassion, cows came up out of the lower pasture and stood by the fence in a group to listen to me play my electric guitar. They were curious.

If you study a little classical music, early on you learn that certain progressions from one chord to another are accepted or known to be pleasing to hear, ie not discordant or unexpected. Like if you're at such and such a place in a progression, then the chord it will effectively resolve to is known. Bach is accepted as having been a true musical genius. Bach's music can be studied in such a way that demonstrates that not only is it amazing music, but that there is a kind of mathematical system that underlies the whole thing. Ever read Magister Ludi by Herman Hesse about the glass bead game? The glass bead game, as I recall, involved the ability to draw the perfect parrallel between say a Physics Theorum and a bronze sculpture, for example. Or possibly a mathematical equation and a piece of music. Kind of the capacity to abstract in its highest form. I guess it suggests the unlimited potential for interconnectedness among things.

Music is communication. Language of heart and soul. You can hear a musician play and never actually see that person and yet you can know volumes about the feelings he or she is trying to express. And, I can't think of an example of music from another culture that the basic underlying feeling being expressed could not be identified and understood. I can't remember if it was Confuscius or Lao Tzu who said that when the government of a country is corrupt, the music of the land will be dark, violent, and discordant, but when the government is just, the music will peaceful and harmonious. Could've been the I Ching. I can't remember.

Freud would've been happy as a clam to have heard Metallica or any dark metal music, for example. He said that through the process of sublimation a person can express impulses or energy that would otherwise be destructive. He felt some of man's greatest accomplishments were the result of sublimation. Sublimation is adaptive. Music is an extremely effective avenue through which to sublimate.

Well, enough of my loose ramblings for one night.

 

[roadtonowhere08]

CandlePower: outstanding post. I think it really cuts the the heart of the idea that humans (and many animals) need a way to express without a formal linguistic language. Music, and all elements that accompany it, are a way of conveying what words sometimes fail to.

 

[LFF]

Quote:

Originally Posted by catachresis /img/forum/go_quote.gif Music makes me feel like throwing bones at the monolith.

LOL!

Man, that made me laugh.

 

[Laokid18]

Very interesting thread Graphicism, I never really wondered why I liked music.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Quote:

Originally Posted by catachresis /img/forum/go_quote.gif Music makes me feel like throwing bones at the monolith.

Eagerly awaiting Zarathustra19's reply.

 

[stuge(original)]

Quote:

Originally Posted by catachresis /img/forum/go_quote.gif Music makes me feel like throwing bones at the monolith.

haha .This is just too much .

in b/w thanks for posting

 

[Industrial]

If you find that interesting check out this link.

AMC: Music and the Brain

No this is not spam, just find this an interesting topic.

Small quote from the site.

"Music and the Brain

Music researchers are finding correlations between music making and some of the deepest workings of the human brain. Research has linked active music making with increased language discrimination and development, math ability, improved school grades, better-adjusted social behavior, and improvements in "spatial-temporal reasoning," - a cornerstone for problem solving."

 

[VicAjax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by catachresis /img/forum/go_quote.gif Music makes me feel like throwing bones at the monolith.

hahahahahaha!

+ YouTube Video​

ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.

 

[DanielCox]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Industrial /img/forum/go_quote.gif Music researchers are finding correlations between music making and some of the deepest workings of the human brain. Research has linked active music making with increased language discrimination and development, math ability, improved school grades, better-adjusted social behavior, and improvements in "spatial-temporal reasoning," - a cornerstone for problem solving."

Why isn't any music major I've ever met like this...

 

[Graphicism]

Quote:

Originally Posted by roadtonowhere08 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I found this link that suggests that animals respond to music as long as it is something that sounds similar to what they would hear from their own species: Monkeys Don’t Go For Music — Unless It’s Made for Them | Wired Science | Wired.com

That music sent shivers down my spine, it was slightly unnerving while fascinating at the same time. I wonder if it's possibly to make music for cats and dogs (©, ®, ™), I know owners that leave there pets home all day that would buy into any form of entertainment like this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benaiir /img/forum/go_quote.gif For some reason, I like almost every post Graphism makes. This'd be so interesting if I were awake (5 hours of outdoor schoolwork is a pain). Bookmarked and will edit the post with something that isn't pointless.

Thank you, if it's not music or graphics then it's generally pretty 'sciency', I'll try post more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CandlePower /img/forum/go_quote.gif Or how about the rhythm of bugs on a summer night. The rise and fall of the tides or waves breaking on the sand. The list is kind of endless. The music of life is everywhere.

Great post CandlePower, definitely something to think about! ... a plausible hypothesis as smart people say

 

[Hi-Finthen]

Indeed music touches and answers something of a need within it seems and is a comfort recognized harmonically on the level of feeling and understanding while making expressive sense for us as it both speaks to us and for us simultaneously as we listen.

I agree with the theory that music uniquely serves our primal needs in multifaceted ways yet at its core it is an expression of communication of emotional feelings in a dialogue of mutual emotional understanding(s) for the listener.

Music feels good~