This book examines the potential role of musicality in human evolution and its consequences for human culture. Drawing on a growing research in archaeology, anthropology, psychology, and musicology, it illustrates the inter-disciplinary necessity of accounting for the phenomenon of human music-making.
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Complete description
Why do human beings make music? No human society has ever existed without music, and people all around the world commit considerable resources, including time, effort, and ingenuity, to musical participation and consumption. Yet until recently archaeology has had little to say about the possible role of music in human evolution. This book examines the potential role of musicality in human evolution and its consequences for human culture. Drawing on a growing body of research in archaeology, anthropology, psychology, and musicology, it illustrates the inter-disciplinary necessity of accounting for the phenomenon of human music-making. Through twelve articles, the contributors to his volume build on Charles Darwin's speculation that human language may have had its origins in forms of vocal communication closer to the condition of music. Music and language are both acquired by individuals, and thus transmitted over the generations as a consequence of an evolved biology specially adapted for these purposes.
The authors of this book seek to illuminate the debate surrounding the precedence of musicality over language in research influenced by Darwin's proposal, critically examining the controversial philosophical, developmental, and inter-cultural issues implied. The accompanying CD provides some glimpses of the practice of music in a variety of cultures and illustrates ways of listening to the human voice that reveal its intrinsic musicality.
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General info
Publisher & Imprint:
Oxford University Press
City:
Oxford
Pages:
368
More info:
height 222 mm
width 149 mm
weight 666 gr
thickness 25 mm
Subject Indexing & Classification
Dewey:(DC23) 781.1
Library of Congress Subject: Language and languages
Departments:
Theory of music & musicology; Archaeology;
Record updated at:
22 May, 2013
time:
13:39
Summary
Music, Language, and Human Evolution
NOTE ON THE ACCOMPANYING CD ; LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS ; LIST OF FIGURES ; INTRODUCTION ; 1. Music, Language and Human Evolution ; PERSPECTIVES FROM ANTHROPOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY ; 2. Music and mosaics: the evolution of human abilities ; 3. The evolution of the human vocal tract: specialised for speecha ; 4. When the words dry up: music and material metaphors half a million years ago ; PERSPECTIVES ON THE EVOLUTIONARY PREREQUISITES FOR MUSICAL BEHAVIOUR ; 5. Hominid physiological evolution and the emergence of musical capacities ; 6. Vocal Traditions of The World: Towards an Evolutionary Account of Voice Production in Music ; 7. Found objects in the musical practices of hunter-gatherers: implications for the evolution of instrumental music ; PERSPECTIVES FROM SOCIAL AND COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY ; 8. On the Evolutionary Function of Song and Dance ; 9. The vocal learning constellation: imitation, ritual culture, encephalization ; PERSPECTIVES FROM MUSICOLOGY ; 10. Music as an emergent exaptation ; 11. Musicians performance prosody ; 12. Harmony and its role in human evolution
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