The Origin of Music

I remember the first time I heard the Rites of Spring. I had checked it out of the library and was listening to it in my bedroom. I lay on the bed and twitched and spasmed. But the next time I listened to it I liked it.Years, um make that decades, ago Leonard Bernstein did a series of video taped lectures on the developement of diatonic to 12 tone music in the west. I would love to find those lectures again. I remember a review of them where the reviewer said Leonard should be sat down at a keyboard and with a gun to his head be made to spill everything he knew about music! Leonard did an amazing job of teaching about various compositions.lfen

A more recent example might be Dave Brubeck's Unsquare Dance. I remember the first time I heard it I simply giggled. But that might also have been the Black & White.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I loved that album! Joe Morello's drum solo on "Take Five" was an epiphany for me. He was my idol. I even attempted to cover it when I was in high school.lfen

I believe the same thing can be stated for art in general. Some have thought it ridiculous that I've used the bower bird's ornate construction of its breeding bower as an example of animal art - yet what are the ultimate consequences of a human's act of creating art? The consequences are just what you list above, "communication, for sexual purposes or bonding, stimulating, comforting, and building relationships."These consequences are the same for the bower bird as they are for the human.

Hey thats fine with me. Besides nobody here has to agree with me. Thats the beauty of free will. A basic structure would do the trick. thats why alternative rock and other rock styles qualify as music.

Pinky wrote:

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I believe the same thing can be stated for art in general. Some have thought it ridiculous that I've used the bower bird's ornate construction of its breeding bower as an example of animal art - yet what are the ultimate consequences of a human's act of creating art? The consequences are just what you list above, "communication, for sexual purposes or bonding, stimulating, comforting, and building relationships."These consequences are the same for the bower bird as they are for the human.

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Agree.

Music for mating? I know Paul Desmond`s sax was orgasmic, but when listening to classical, the last thing I want to do is jump someone`s bones. :-)

The scripture below is taken from Ezekiel 28 and is an interesting aside about music. It pertains to Lucifer, his beauty, and his ability to sing. I read somewhere that he was able to sing seven-part harmony all by himself.
Yes, music in heaven must really be something.13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.I also like the classics. There is a passage in Beethoven's Piano Concerto #5, the beginning of the second movement, that is breathtaking. Also, the beginning of the Sanctus in his Mass in C Major, makes me want to cry.

You miss the point of sexual selection. Why do only Peacocks have such large fancy tails? It is because of feedback sexual selection causing an attribute to evolve more than it needs to for any other purpose. Such feedback selection can easily turn hoots into harmony, movement into dance and body painting into art.Next, it is, of course, not monkeys that are the most recent common non-human ancestor but an ape from which we humans, chimpanzees and bonobos apes descended.And finally, a statement is an argument, as used in debates, for it states a position.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Really? I wonder how the evolutionary theory explains what is a melody,harmony and rhythm. Does a bird with a modern style of singing is more fertile than a bird with a baroque style of singing. You tell me brother. I agree on this but not just communicate; worship I believe instinct is something in animals that makes them do stuff (procreate for example) without them being able to control it. What about people like me that dont want to have any kids. I can use protection or just abstain myself. If i abstain myself, decide to use protection, or even change my mind and decide to have kids i know what i am doing and there is no instinct in me for anything. When we have sex whether to procreate or for fun nothing is forcing us to do it like it happens to animals. We have a choice not instinct on this subject. So what youre basically telling me here is that when you turn on the stereo at home and find yourself alone the music makes you fuck the pillow. I hope you dont listen to your music while your mother is around. Does trash metal music turns you on as well? dont answer that. Thats because we dont like to fool ourselves playing with our minds. We dont conform to anything less than the real thing. there's no phsycology involved. you'll only understand this when you have a real spiritual experience. And the day you do and still cant tell the difference between a spiritual experience(having your soul leave its body and walk around the house while you can see your body sleeping in bed) or a physcological one (jerking off) youll find out that humans are not as inteligent as we think we are. At least to the churches ive been there no such thing as control. An honest church never violates your right of free will. If you dont agree with a church you can be free to stand up and leave. Or have more spiritual experiences. Now I understand why you people think life is meaningless. If reproduction was our purpose in life why dont we die after losing our virginity

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Ponlo todo en las manos de Dios y que se joda el mundo. El principio de la sabiduria es el temor a Jehova

Jazzlover writes:

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Really? I wonder how the evolutionary theory explains what is a melody,harmony and rhythm. Does a bird with a modern style of singing is more fertile than a bird with a baroque style of singing

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How did you write this without reading RAZD above? :RAZD wrote: "You miss the point of sexual selection. Why do only Peacocks have such large fancy tails? It is because of feedback sexual selection causing an attribute to evolve more than it needs to for any other purpose. Such feedback selection can easily turn hoots into harmony, movement into dance and body painting into art."

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Gilgamesh writes:
How is the Biblical explaination better than the evolutionary one?Jazzlover responds:

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You tell me brother.

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Your Biblical explanation is akin to primitive mans explanation of a volcano being the wrath of an earth or fire God. Explaning music in terms of God has absolutelyno explanatory power, and, as in the case of the volcano, is utterly wrong. Science developed when we stopped using God as the explanation for real world phenonmena.Jazzlover writes:

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I agree on this but not just communicate; worship

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I addressed this. Because of the emotive and addictive power of music and song, religions use this medium for indoctrination. You call it worship. Music has been used to motivate soldiers to march into battle, rally behind a political leader, or worship any given God.I've studied the use of music within Christian churches at great length. It is one of a plethora of control and persuasion techniques utilised by such churches.Jazzlover writes:

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I believe instinct is something in animals that makes them do stuff (procreate for example) without them being able to control it. What about people like me that dont want to have any kids. I can use protection or just abstain myself. If i abstain myself, decide to use protection, or even change my mind and decide to have kids i know what i am doing and there is no instinct in me for anything. When we have sex whether to procreate or for fun nothing is forcing us to do it like it happens to animals. We have a choice not instinct on this subject.

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This is well off topic. We are just animals too: just considerbly more intelligent. We are similarly compelled by instinct to procreate, eat and seek shelter etc. We can defer our instincts to indulge in other compulsions, determined by our needs and priorities in life. Animals, to a lesser extent, can also do this. You see this in a dog when you train it to not eat food not laid out for it, not go to the toilet inside the house and to not hump the next door neighbours poodle.Jazzlover writes:

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So what youre basically telling me here is that when you turn on the stereo at home and find yourself alone the music makes you fuck the pillow. I hope you dont listen to your music while your mother is around. Does trash metal music turns you on as well? dont answer that.

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Twit.As I stated, while music in many contexts is related to sex, it is a form of comminication that induces and emotive response (sexual or otherwise). Our ability to record music and play it back without the actual human interaction element of it is intriguing. Our intellect has allowed us to develop the means to derive the pleasure without the interaction from which the pleasure was primarily derived. I tried to draw an analogy between this and primates ability to transcend the act of procreation by being able to sexual stimulate oneself while alone. I guessed you'd have trouble responding the the latter point without giggling like a school boy.Jazzlover writes:

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Thats because we dont like to fool ourselves playing with our minds. We dont conform to anything less than the real thing.

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Well it depends on what variant of Christianity to subscribe to, but in many cases it actually means an intolerble adolescent life of desire and significant guilt and shame, followed by a ridiculously young virgin marriage and very average married sexual life. That aint the real thing.Jazzlover writes:

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there's no phsycology involved. you'll only understand this when you have a real spiritual experience. And the day you do and still cant tell the difference between a spiritual experience(having your soul leave its body and walk around the house while you can see your body sleeping in bed) or a physcological one (jerking off) youll find out that humans are not as inteligent as we think we are. At least to the churches ive been there no such thing as control. An honest church never violates your right of free will. If you dont agree with a church you can be free to stand up and leave.

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How do you know that I haven't had a spititual experience, or indeed many of them in many different contexts? It is because that we are intelligent that we can identify where these experiences come from. They come from our own minds. Because I acknowldege this fact, it doesn't mean that my spiritual experiences are any less thrilling than yours.I am not aware that out of body experiences, as you describe, are a claimed Christian ability. They are normally associated with new age claims. I'd probably keep that one under you hat.I'd argue that every single Christian church that I have been to, from liberal to cultist relies on elements of control. Even the most liberal tend to use the persuasive power of the promise of eternal life vs some other much less desirable fate, for starters. The most cultist use everthing from indoctrinating song and chant (glossolalia), guilt and shame, information control, misinformation, physical restraint, exlcusion from non-church social groups, childhood indoctrination, thought re-inforcement, methods of punishment: like suspension and disenfellowshipping, to name a few. These feature make some Christian chruches the most immoral organisations in our community. Particularly when you notice how they prey on the emotionally and physcholically vulnerable.It's very hard for someone to leave a church when they honestly believe that they will go to hell if they do so.Jazzlover writes:

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Now I understand why you people think life is meaningless. If reproduction was our purpose in life why dont we die after losing our virginity

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For you, life is meaningless without God. For us without God, life has meaning waiting to be defined anyway you wish. Of course, on a biological level, the purpose of life is to reproduce. But as we have stated above our intellect allows us to transcend that compulsion and find a greater meaning. For many it is a God. For many others it is family, career, helping others, or just maximising happiness.It is whatever you wish to make up.

Easy. Because it still says nothing aout harmony. When we talk about dance we do choreographed moves with the purpose of exciting sexually the opposite sex or for anything else. The point is that a dance sequence is planned. Its no product of meaningless random movement. In art you have like in music inspiration and design. No matterr what the painter's style he wants to achieve a certain impression. He doesn't just make a mess with the paint and suddenly art comes out. Are you saying that by throwing notes in the air and seeing what happens I am making music? Hum Id be one hell of a composer. Hey youre saying it yourself. Its a primitive man's explanation. There was no technology around so the theory about it being the fire of God is just as good as saying That the planet has a gas problem. Without technology around (and pepcid ac) we coudnt find out which was true. Science can explain what sound is and can measure the frequencies of individual notes (take the A note for example, it has a frequency of 440 MHz)but it still cannot explain the phenomenon of music. By the way it makes me a bit mad That the best musicians all around the world agree that music comes from the spirit and has no real explanation and still scientist who have never even picked a note on the piano or have never felt what it is like to make music, say that the purpose of music is sex. I have some homework for you. Go ask profesional musicians in your town (when i say profesional musician they must have at least bs in music performance or education) if the purpose of what they do is to get laid. Find at least ten.Im not going to reply on the other points (unless you ask me too) because their getting off topic and I just got home from the university and i'm not in the mood.Good day

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Ponlo todo en las manos de Dios y que se joda el mundo. El principio de la sabiduria es el temor a Jehova

Perhaps a 'dance sequence' is planned, but that does not make all dancing planned - I don't plan when I dance, I try to give myself over to the music. Your statement might be true for a square dance, but not for a mosh pit. Ever hear of Action Painting? Jackson Pollock and his contemporaries?Jazzlover - you seem to argue a lot by generalization (as in, no such thing as rap music with 'harmony'). In these sorts of discussions I think it more interesting to look not at the 'average', but at the extremes, where the boundaries of 'art' are pushed. Do you have a source for this bold statement or is just your opinion? By your definition, Beethoven, Igor Stravinksy, Paul McCartney, and Miles Davis were/are not professional musicians...Why must a professional musician have a bachelor's degree? A professional musician simply is one who gets paid to create music - I would guess that if you took an accounting of the great professional musicians, historically or presently, a minority of them would have advanced degrees in music.Besides, how does a BS in music qualify someone to discuss the evolution of art? It's like arguing against old earth geology by telling me to ask ten preachers in my town what they think...Regarding musicians and sex: are you asserting that "groupies" don't exist? That professional musicians are not more attractive to the opposite sex as a result of their musical skills?Also, keep in mind that just because a scientist believes that music originated as a means to create social/mating connections does not mean that the scientist is not a musician or someone deeply moved by music.The initial origins of music do not change the power of music to move the spirit.

But it does, because it involves a feedback over many generations rather than the all-at-once development that you imply. Those peacock tail feathers did not happen in one generation.Certainly the composition of music has evolved, not just in historical times (classical music) but in contemporary times (Dave Brubeck, Take Five and other works in different tempos) ... jazz is nothing but an evolution of music . To assume modern sensibility in first origins is fallacious: one would do better to look into more primitive music and instruments.One could argue that as soon as instruments were used that harmonics were discovered, forming as they do the natural (based on the physics of sound) basis for all known historic musical scales.enjoy

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}