Four principles of bio-musicology

Abstract

As a species-typical trait of Homo sapiens, musicality represents a cognitively complex and biologically grounded capacity worthy of intensive empirical investigation. Four principles are suggested here as prerequisites for a successful future discipline of bio-musicology. These involve adopting: (i) a multicomponent approach which recognizes that musicality is built upon a suite of interconnected capacities, of which none is primary; (ii) a pluralistic Tinbergian perspective that addresses and places equal weight on questions of mechanism, ontogeny, phylogeny and function; (iii) a comparative approach, which seeks and investigates animal homologues or analogues of specific components of musicality, wherever they can be found; and (iv) an ecologically motivated perspective, which recognizes the need to study widespread musical behaviours across a range of human cultures (and not focus solely on Western art music or skilled musicians). Given their pervasiveness, dance and music created for dancing should be considered central subcomponents of music, as should folk tunes, work songs, lullabies and children's songs. Although the precise breakdown of capacities required by the multicomponent approach remains open to debate, and different breakdowns may be appropriate to different purposes, I highlight four core components of human musicality—song, drumming, social synchronization and dance—as widespread and pervasive human abilities spanning across cultures, ages and levels of expertise. Each of these has interesting parallels in the animal kingdom (often analogies but in some cases apparent homologies also). Finally, I suggest that the search for universal capacities underlying human musicality, neglected for many years, should be renewed. The broad framework presented here illustrates the potential for a future discipline of bio-musicology as a rich field for interdisciplinary and comparative research.

Statistical universals reveal the structures and functions of human music

“…Although synchronized rhythms based on isochronous beats were long thought to be uniquely human, recent research has discovered that innate neural mechanisms underlying rhythmic entrainment (the ability to synchronize to a beat) seem to have evolved convergently in humans and several vocal-learning lineages of birds and mammals, but not in nonhuman primates (16,46). However, communicative signaling using instruments (e.g., African great ape drumming) and semantically meaningful vocalizations (e.g., vervet monkey alarm calls) are found in nonhuman primates but are rare or absent in birds (9,47). Thus, although multiple features of human music have parallels in other species, it is the combination of these features as a package that seems unique to humans.…”

A definition of song from human music universals observed in primate calls

“…Consequently, we have few clues available to resolve if human music is truly novel or merely an evolutionary continuation of the song-like calls of non-human primates such as those of the lesser apes. Alternatively, researchers can leverage statistical tools to investigate ultimate evolutionary function and mechanism by using behavioral data among living organisms [4].…”

The Evolution of Rhythm Cognition: Timing in Music and Speech

“…Instead, the evolution of human behavior and neurobiology requires a more indirect scientific method. This is why understanding the cognitive neuroscience of rhythm and its evolution calls for a tight integration of different perspectives (Fitch, 2015b;Honing et al, 2015;Ravignani, 2017a). In particular, complementary approaches include but are not limited to:…”