Re: [asa] Music and Evolution

On 10/9/06, Jon Tandy <tandyland@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Below is today's commentary from Chuck Colson, on the origins of music
> through presumed evolutionary explanations. Just curious what comments
> might be elicited on the subject.
> One good question might be whether music is truly a distinctly human
> characteristic or not (what about dogs which sometimes howl together when
> one starts -- are they making music in a sense? What about songbirds, etc. -
> can we say that they are not making music in a way that we humans define as
> music?)
>
>

From a science documentary I saw on TV once, it appears that music is most
definitely NOT just a human characteristic, but birds appear to be musicians
as well.

The study was conducted by a scientist/musician (can't remember much more
than that), in which he took several recordings of lark-song and transcribed
them for piano. In order for it to be playable by a human musician, it had
to be slowed down considerably, in that about 45 seconds of larksong was
transcribed exactly into around 13 minutes of music. He then got the
opinion of several composers and professional musicians, and all agreed that
the "lark symphony" had all the characteristics of human music, such as
themes, variations on themes, countersubjects and so forth. The conclusion
of the program was that it might be that music is a property of brains
(neural networks).

On the non-scientific side of it, the French 20th century classical composer
Olivier Messiaen also held that birds were musicians, and birdsong heavily
influenced much of his music, notably a massive piano suite "Catalogue des
Oiseaux". He would work by going out with his wife into the forest. He
would attempt to transcribe by ear the various birdsongs he heard, while his
wife would make tape recordings of the birdsong for future reference. The
birdsong melodies would then be incorporated into his very exotic music -
which often contained very spiritual titles - Messiaen was a devout Catholic
and mystic. A typical piece that combines birdsong with spiritual themes is
"Quatuor pour le fin du temps" (Quartet for the End of Time), composed in
prisoner of war camp. It so happened that there were four french musicians
in the camp who played piano, clarinet, violin and cello. The piece was
performed live in the camp. Messaien also had a peculiar gift in that he
believed he could associate colours with musical chords & frequently
described his pieces in terms of exotic colours.

Iain

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Received on Mon, 9 Oct 2006 17:59:28 +0100