evolutionary biomusicology!

_The Origins of Music_

Edited by Nils L. Wallin, Björn Merker and Steven Brown

MIT Press

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=4833

An anthology of papers contributing to a new field of study:

evolutionary biomusicology!

AND... a highly critical review of this text and this new field:

http://www-ext.mus.cam.ac.uk/~ic108/PDF/IRMCMP.pdf

AND while we are on this subject... mayhaps it was an ancient carnivore
who "invented" the diatonic scale! and it wasn't humanoid! hehe...

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/FluteDebate.html

---
Hanuman Zhang, musical mad scientist (no, I don't wanna take over the world,
just the sound spectrum...)

"What strange risk of hearing can bring sound to music - a hearing whose
obligation awakens a sensibility so new that it is forever a unique, new-born,
anti-death surprise, created now and now and now. .. a hearing whose moment
in time is always daybreak." - Lucia Dlugoszewski

"The wonderousness of the human mind is too great to be transferred into
music only by 7 or 12 elements of tone steps in one octave." - shakuhachi master
Masayuki Koga

"There's a rabbinical tradition that the music in heaven will be microtonal"
-annotative interpretation of Schottenstein Tehillim, 92:4, the verse being:
"Upon a ten-stringed * instrument and upon lyre, with singing accompanied by
harp." [* utilizing new tones]

NADA BRAHMA - Sanskrit, "sound [is the] Godhead"

"God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of himself." -Thomas
Merton

LILA - Sanskrit, "divine play/sport/whimsy" - "the universe is what happens
when God wants to play" - "joyous exercise of spontaneity involved in the art
of creation"

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, czhang23@a... wrote:
>
> _The Origins of Music_
>
> Edited by Nils L. Wallin, Björn Merker and Steven Brown
>
> MIT Press
>
>
> http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=4833
>
>
> An anthology of papers contributing to a new field of study:
>
> evolutionary biomusicology!
>
> AND... a highly critical review of this text and this new field:
>
> http://www-ext.mus.cam.ac.uk/~ic108/PDF/IRMCMP.pdf

What do you mean by "highly critical"? Does it mean "highly
positive"? The conclusion of the review is as follows:

"Overall, this volume is a success; its principal strength lies in
the bringing together of many, and many-voiced, disciplines. Several
chapters, particularly those by Brown, Merker, Dissanayake and
Freeman, constitute engaging and prospectively fertile contributions
to the debate on music and its origins, while many others provide
extremely helpful overviews of diverse fields. The only caveats that
I would express are concerned with the volume's generally uncritical
acceptance of music as having adaptive value, and with its
over-selective account of the archaeology of music. But this is an
extraordinarily broad field and one that is itself in a constant
state of evolution: like any scientific area, the consensus is
susceptible to overthrow by emerging data or interpretation of
existing data; like any field of social debate whose terms and
arguments are shaped by the cultural context in which they arise,
those terms and arguments are susceptible to change as the cultural
framework changes. This book is a significant achievement; the
editors have produced a volume that, at its least convincing,
provokes the need for explicit and coherent counter-argument, and at
its best serves to illuminate previously unrevealed facets of music
and of musical experience."

Martin

Evolutionary biomusicology seems to me to be an attempt to apply Chomskian =

linguistics to music-- and neither Chomsky's linguistics nor any propsed mu=
sical
application has any real basis in neurological reality. There is no hardwir=
ing for
language and none for music either, apart from our basic faculty to hear an=
d make
sounds-- the rest is learned and neuroscience supports this idea. -Justin

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, czhang23@a... wrote:
>
> _The Origins of Music_
>
> Edited by Nils L. Wallin, Björn Merker and Steven Brown
>
> MIT Press
>
>
> http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=4833
>
>
> An anthology of papers contributing to a new field of study:
>
> evolutionary biomusicology!
>
> AND... a highly critical review of this text and this new field:
>
> http://www-ext.mus.cam.ac.uk/~ic108/PDF/IRMCMP.pdf
>
> AND while we are on this subject... mayhaps it was an ancient carnivo=
re
> who "invented" the diatonic scale! and it wasn't humanoid! hehe...
>
> http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/FluteDebate.html
>
>
> ---
> Hanuman Zhang, musical mad scientist (no, I don't wanna take over the wor=
ld,
> just the sound spectrum...)
>
> "What strange risk of hearing can bring sound to music - a hearing wh=
ose
> obligation awakens a sensibility so new that it is forever a unique, new-=
born,
> anti-death surprise, created now and now and now. .. a hearing whose mome=
nt
> in time is always daybreak." - Lucia Dlugoszewski
>
> "The wonderousness of the human mind is too great to be transferred into =

> music only by 7 or 12 elements of tone steps in one octave." - shakuhachi=
master
> Masayuki Koga
>
> "There's a rabbinical tradition that the music in heaven will be microton=
al"
> -annotative interpretation of Schottenstein Tehillim, 92:4, the verse bei=
ng:
> "Upon a ten-stringed * instrument and upon lyre, with singing accompanied=
by
> harp." [* utilizing new tones]
>
> NADA BRAHMA - Sanskrit, "sound [is the] Godhead"
>
> "God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of himself." -Tho=
mas
> Merton
>
> LILA - Sanskrit, "divine play/sport/whimsy" - "the universe is what happe=
ns
> when God wants to play" - "joyous exercise of spontaneity involved in the=
art
> of creation"

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Justin Weaver" <improvist@u...> wrote:
> Evolutionary biomusicology seems to me to be an attempt to apply
Chomskian linguistics to music--

No, the biology of music perception has no relation to what Chomsky
did.

> There is no hardwiring for
> language and none for music either, apart from our basic faculty to
hear and make sounds-- the rest is learned and neuroscience supports
this idea.

If there was no hardwiring for music, nobody would ever have made any.

Martin

> > Evolutionary biomusicology seems to me to be an attempt to apply
> Chomskian linguistics to music--
>
> No, the biology of music perception has no relation to what Chomsky
> did.

I find it quite similar; both ideas are equally anti-functional in their outlook.

>
>
> > There is no hardwiring for
> > language and none for music either, apart from our basic faculty to
> hear and make sounds-- the rest is learned and neuroscience supports
> this idea.
>
> If there was no hardwiring for music, nobody would ever have made any.
>

This depends on what you mean by hardwiring. We are 'hardwired' to create and
perceive both linguistic and musical noises, but we are not hardwired to create or
perceive systematized language (grammar) nor systematized music-- these are
entirely learned. -Justin

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Justin Weaver" <improvist@u...> wrote:
> > > There is no hardwiring for
> > > language and none for music either, apart from our basic
faculty to
> > hear and make sounds-- the rest is learned and neuroscience
supports
> > this idea.
> >
> > If there was no hardwiring for music, nobody would ever have made
any.
> >
>
> This depends on what you mean by hardwiring. We are 'hardwired' to
create and
> perceive both linguistic and musical noises, but we are not
hardwired to create or
> perceive systematized language (grammar) nor systematized music--
these are
> entirely learned. -Justin

There are worlds between "noises" and "systematized music". Of
course, we are not hardwired for the latter. But, for example, we are
hardwired to perceive sound spectra with the typical harmonicity of
the human voice as more pleasant than most other natural sound
spectra. Part of this hardwiring is the pitch mechanism in the
auditory brain stem, which according to present evidence is biased
towards low-order ratios up to 6:5 in the interval range between
about 260 and 520 Cent.

Details are on my website and elsewhere on the web.

Martin