What is the origin and purpose of music? This week we are going to take a trip back to when music is supposed to have started and what its function was. Of course, this is highly unverifiable but there are clues left for us to have an educated guess.
Musicality is the capacity to perceive, appreciate and produce music and much of early tribal music was related to nature. Early origins of music have been termed proto-music, ie; music that sounds unsophisticated or undeveloped. Is this what we hear in the bird and animal kingdom?
What can our animal friends tell us about where music came from?
In the arena of biomusicality, we discover that humpback whales produce complex songs with loops of melody and phrases that repeat at the end. These are sonic frequencies used that travel over long distances, designed to communicate to other pods. Obviously, we apply our own definitions of ‘song’ into the animals, and we don’t have the sole rights to what determines a song for the animal itself. Animals use different species-specific frequencies to communicate and have been shown to distinguish different types of music played to them via the individual frequency blueprint. In a previous blog you would have seen me talk about animals and music and that birds such as parrots have been shown to keep a beat and move to that when listening to music.
Birds and other animals use specific calls to attract a mate that are clearly distinguishable from the usual calls and certain calls for marking territory. This makes the purpose known to the other members of that species. So different calls have different purposes. Let’s also distinguish between bird calls (which are more proto music) – shorter duration, acoustically simpler and more related to warnings and location information, and bird song which has longer phrases. Birds have been shown to incorporate new environmental sounds into their usual song, showing adaptation of the original. Bats and elephants have also been shown to have the capacity of vocal learning and mimicry and some birds have been taught to sing a completely non species related song, which they can sing at a different pitch. Sea lions, parrots and elephants have been shown to have skills in entrainment – ie moving to the rhythm of music.
Research on specific animals has shown they can perceive music in the way we do and be able to distinguish timbre, pitch tone and amplitude. (Although distinguishing pitch is more related to chords rather than note sequences). It has also been found that certain animals can group sounds together into patterns. Certain female birds have been shown to prefer pitches that are in an accurate ratio to each other sung by the male. This places emphasis on timing and pitch accuracy. Given all of the above, we can definitely say that animals do have musicality and have been around for longer than humans so could we assume that music itself started in the animal kingdom?
What about the origins of human music?
Did the purpose of music for humans originate out of observing that music in nature is used as a type of communication method or is musicality innate? Cultures across the globe have developed their own music independently over time but much of the systems of intervals between notes are similar. Why is this?
To establish when music could have started for humans we need to examine when they developed the necessary faculties to make it. Eg; cognition and motor control. Archaeological evidence has shown that pre-Neanderthal humans had the anatomical capacity to make sounds generally in the vocal range that we can. As the brain developed and the larynx lowered, more resonance was possible, and more sounds could be made.
Did speech come first? Did these people make music at all? Or did music lead to the development of speech? We have no evidence of music from this time and can only theorise that round 500,000 yrs. ago, when fire was used for cooking, groups of people gathered, there was more collaboration, centralised foraging patterns and increased hunting efficiency, more time was available where socialising could occur around the fire. This could create an environment conducive to the creation of songs or dance.
It was not until 40,000 years ago that we have any evidence of musical instruments. These were quite sophisticated bone flutes found in Germany. Their construction and design indicate that there was musical instrument making skill beforehand. It is quite possible before this that animal tusks could have been used as musical instruments and other items like didgeridoos could have been around but perished over time.
There is also a particular type of kelp that grows near Africa and is still used to produce flutes, that could have been used in earlier times. It is also likely that there were some types of struck percussion instruments that existed prior to 40,000 years ago. If we accept that Australian first nation peoples existed up to 60,000yrs ago, then it’s likely there were didgeridoos and perhaps rattles made from seed pods.
We can hypothesise that there would have been a simple music of either sound or short vocalisations to the accompaniment of percussion instruments as still exists in more primitive tribes around the world, but that it developed into quite informative songs relating to lore, social expectation, land and sky, waterhole location and hunting. Music was used as a form of communication and social cohesiveness or bonding. Was music used for entertainment? Was this a luxury? Or was music used merely for necessity of information transfer and perhaps tribal compliance? I wonder do ‘song’ birds sing for pleasure as well? They certainly seem to be happy.
So, after this brief foray into the origins of music, I can safely say that music as we know it, started somewhere between 500,000 to 60,000 years ago!! A very wide range of time!! Like the animal world, a big part what we know about the early origins of human music was that it seems to have been based on communication of information and co-ordination of tasks and social structure. It is not certain whether music was created and listened to at that time as any form of entertainment like we appreciate now.
Check out my other blog articles for further interesting information about music.
Have a fab week!! Next week I am planning to delve into the confusing world of non-fungible tokens and the music industry – if I can get my head around it! It is an area I currently know little about so we may be learning together!! See you then!
Soleil
