The Origin of Music

Me neither. I'm not a Bob Dylan fan. I completely understand you. I'm a Christian and i listen to a lot of metal most of which is considered satanic by many, but I still enjoy the beat. I have also been part of a lot of rock bands and I didn't agree with the messege they were delivering but hey i needed the money.

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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

So what is the boundary you have set between noise and music? You say later that you enjoy metal and rock, so why are they music while hip-hop is not?What about acid jazz? Many people wince and cover their ears when I play John Coltrane's Stellar Regions...

In theory for something to be considered music it needs three important factors
1-melody
2-rhythm
3-harmony
Hip hop and rap have rhythm, rarely have melody becaused it is sung mostly in an improvised style, and harmony doent exist in this music.You can appreciate the boundary between music and noise in rock music when you compare a band like dream theater(music) with one like Dismember(noise). If youre familiar with these two bands and keep in mind the concepts above you wont have a hard time figuring out what i mean. Compare john coltrane(music) with the roescoe mitchell sextet(noise) and john coltrane will sound like Bach to you.one question. Do you consider igor stravinsky's music noise or an incredible piece of music?

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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

Well, you've given us a working definition of "music", though we now need definitions of "melody", "rhythm", and "harmony". I'm sure there's lot of stuff out there that does not meet a strict requirement for "harmony" that most would consider music. Does "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" pecked out on a piano with a single finger have harmony? Does it qualify as music? Be careful making such broad generalizations based on style - to say that there is no such thing as hip-hop with harmony is downright absurd. (Maybe you just haven't been exposed to good hip-hop yet...) Style or genre shouldn't define music (the requirements of music should). Perhaps. But just because Coltrane is less "noisy" than Mitchell doesn't mean that all Coltrane compositions immediately qualify as music.Just about everyone I've played Stellar Regions for complains that it is just noise, and I'm sure they would say that it lacks melody, rhythm, and harmony. Have you listened to Stellar Regions?

How did ears develope?

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If you say there are no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure about that?

As all religions are an appeal to emotion, this argument is not different. It is an appeal to emotion and not to the intellect and can be reduced to: Isn't music beautiful, it must be created by God (often lumped in with Art and other things Christians find pretty)It fits in nicely with the: eveything good = God, everything bad = Satan, rationale.The only problem is that music makes perfect sense in light of evolution. We are pattern seeking animals, and the most pleasant music is created with strong patterns of rythm and melody. Music plays a varied role to humans, mirroring similar functions with our fellow animals. Music is an addictive and powerful emotive stimulant.Because of our intellect our music is proportionately more complex than that produced by our fellow animals.As decsribed above, it is used for courtship. The appeal of musicians, even DJs, the images of MTV, and the experience of nightclubs, rave parties, concerts and going back a bit, dance halls, attests to this. This parallels the sexual calls of animals from birds to whales.It is used for relationship bonding, from the classic serenading scenario, to the mother singing to the young child to calm it to sleep. Very akin to a cat's purr.It is also a very strong social tool, and in this use it is not disimilar to some recreational drugs such as alcohol. It elevates moods, creates euphoria, brings people together and helps them bond. This can be seen in music concerts, pubs, clubs and, of course, in churches.And, because of it's emotive power, it can be used as a tool for indoctrination and control. This can be seen in almost all totalitarianisms, whether they be political or religious (they both use the same methods of thought control and indoctrination). This can be seen in military marching songs and music, political and nationalistic songs, and religious singing.Music can induce trance like, euphoric states, that can be addictive and can contain indoctrinating messages. Of course, someone stated above that music was created "to facilitate the worship of God". Any God.But even in the religious context, music makes evolutionary sense. It creates social bonds, supports religious indoctrination (religion itself is an evolutionary compulsion), and facilitates sexual selection within churches themselves.I support the latter assertion from my studies of Australian Christian churches where a reasonable number of sometimes socially inept single males are drawn to religion because the chauvanistic environments are very condusive to males finding wives. And those of signifcance within Christian churches, the leaders, musicians and vocalists often have the pick of the crop!But note how even though Christians emotively assert music is from God, music that occurs outside of the context of religious indoctrination, eg: MTV, raves, clubs, rock concerts, particularly heavy metal (!) is from Satan.How very convenient.This message has been edited by Gilgamesh, 08-11-2004 12:21 AM

This may be the answer. On the other hand, it may not be anything at all :-P
(lifted from another forum)
I was just listening to a local science show, and the presenter claimed that scientists have developed a nanometer (thats a measuring device only a few atoms in size) they then rested this meter on the outer wall of a living human cell, they discovered that each cell is expanding and contracting a billionth of a metre a thousand times a second (now stop rolling your eyes it's true lol) but even more amazing is that the resulting micro vibrations actually generate a musical note equivalent to C sharp.

Nighttrain wrote:

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they discovered that each cell is expanding and contracting a billionth of a metre a thousand times a second but even more amazing is that the resulting micro vibrations actually generate a musical note equivalent to C sharp.

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This may be the answer. On the other hand, it may not be anything at all! (lifted from your post, lifted from another forum)!Interesting. Humans tend to find that music sounds incomplete unless it ends on C. Most soungs do end on C, as a result.

General,That is a stark question. Are you getting at something or just have sudden curiosity?Sound as vibration in a medium such as water, earth, or air. The ocean is a very noisy place. Sensitivity to light and vibration are evident in very simple creatures. As cell count and nervous systems increased in complexity so did sensory systems. Is your interest in ears? Or in brain processing of auditory signals?lfen

But you might want to start a thread on that subject.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well according to the definition of music it doesn't. It qualifies as an exercise or simply as a melody but not as a piece of music. I'm not here to tell anybody whats music and whats not. If you feel that a simple melody is music well that's your opinion. The basic idea of harmony in a piece of music is simply having a harmonic instrument on board like the piano or guitar. If you play twinkle twinkle little star on a trumpet for example, and have a piano or guitar playing the proper chords then you have music. Well give me some examples of hip hop or rap songs that have at least the basic chords in them for them to be considered harmonic. If i'm not familar with them ill find them and listen to them. BE CAREFUL. If it has a piano or guitar (or some other harmonic instrument like the harp or vibraphone) the piece doesn't neccearily have harmony. I want complete chord structures not a piano picking a few notes just to fill a void in the rhythm. Is there such a thing? I beg you. Expose me to it. Like I said before if it has melody, harmony, and rhythm it is music independently of the instruments timbre or sound. The fact that you can appreciate it or not is another thing. No i haven't head it yet and I'm looking for it. I bet its a free jazz tune. Free jazz is another subject. There are some of those pieces that definetely qualify as music and others that not. But no I'm not familiar with this tune

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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

This all boils down to in whether you believe in the Bible or not. As I mentioned in an earlier post music existed in heavcen long before creation and was (and still is) the worshiping tool for angels. We dont believe God created music just because its beautiful but because the bible mentions its existance in heaven before creation. If you dont believe in the bible you conform to the tought that music is only for mating because birds sing when the females are in reproductive season. But do birds really sing or are we assuming that they do just because they communicate in what appears to us as a melody. And as I said before a simple melody is not music. Dogs communiate through barking and growling and do we say that dogs sing? No Why Not? because dog barks do not appear melodic to us. That means that we decide which animal makes music and which doesn't. What does an animal know about melodies or music? Nothing. A dogs bark or a little bird's whistling is only a pattern that only another dog or bird understands just the way sentences follw a certain pattern that we understand. Using this reasonig I get to the conclusion that when i speak to somebody else I'm singing.Why does music appeal to emotions? because its spiritual. Is there an evolutionary theory for inspiration? When i"m writting music and a specific melody comes to my mind I use my intellect to write it down (so that i can communicate it with the rest of the band) and arrange it but how do you explain that moment of inspiration that made that melody come out in your head? Once again it is spiritual. If music is for mating how come angels don't mate? Because music is not for mating but instead to deliver a messege. You can use it for worship, promoting sex and drugs, violence etc but its not the music its the messege.Ill continue with this later im tired right now.

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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

Maybe our choice of music resonates with an internal rhythm? Do profoundly deaf people have an affinity with music vibrations transmitted through their skin?

That's fine, it just seemed that if the thread was really going to work on "The Origin of Music," as described in the title, then we better have a definition. I'm not arguing with you because I disagree with you, but in order to work out the limits of music. Also, it will be the boundary between "music" and "non-music" that is most pertinent to this discussion, which is why I am pressing the idea of "borderline" cases.From a personal standpoint, I am not sure that complete chord structure is necessary to consider something music - such distinction would eliminate much primitive and world music. It may be more of a distinction of European music.If I only considered the hip-hop that gets mainstream radio-play here in the US, I would probably agree that there is little if any musical value there. However, there is some exciting rap/hip-hop out there, usually refered to as "underground" or "experimental" because it is not heard in the mainstream. There are some labels - Mush, DefJux, Ninjatune are the ones I can think of now, putting out interesting work, much of it infused with jazz, or performed by artists that are involved in both the jazz and hip-hop communities. I believe the jazz label BlueNote has even picked up a couple of these artist recently.

jazzlover wrote:

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This all boils down to in whether you believe in the Bible or not.

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The point is the music is easily explicable within the evolutionary model and we do not need to resort to supernatural explanations.

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As I mentioned in an earlier post music existed in heavcen long before creation and was (and still is) the worshiping tool for angels. We dont believe God created music just because its beautiful but because the bible mentions its existance in heaven before creation.

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Rightio. This begs the validity of the Bible question, but that is outside this thread. How is the Biblical explaination better than the evolutionary one?

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But do birds really sing or are we assuming that they do just because they communicate in what appears to us as a melody. And as I said before a simple melody is not music. Dogs communiate through barking and growling and do we say that dogs sing? No Why Not? because dog barks do not appear melodic to us. That means that we decide which animal makes music and which doesn't. What does an animal know about melodies or music? Nothing. A dogs bark or a little bird's whistling is only a pattern that only another dog or bird understands just the way sentences follw a certain pattern that we understand. Using this reasonig I get to the conclusion that when i speak to somebody else I'm singing.

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Good point. But it's still the same. "Music" (liberally defined), whether it be the drone from crickets, dogs barking at night or bird song is still all about communication, for sexual purposes or bonding, stimulating, comforting, and building relationships. Human music is the same: we have just elevated it's complexity and role because we are considerably more intelligent than our animal kin.An comparison can be drawn with sex itself. Like animals, humans have an instictual desire to procreate. But we have risen above the instinct to apply sexuality in much more complex ways other than merely for reproduction. We use sex for other things from conveying feelings to fun and recreation and mere stimulation.In some contexts music is the same: where music used to play a role in bonding and communication, we can now listen to music by ourselves on our stereos and derive the same stimulation without the presence of other people. We can also enjoy sex by ourselves! Unless your a Christian...

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Why does music appeal to emotions? because its spiritual.

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No, it's physiological. Music stimulates endorphins and affects moods. That's why it is great for everything from sex, to bonding and to indoctrination. Just like any other endorphin stimulating activity, whether it be natural or drug induced.I've actually always been quite surprised that more religions don't use drugs for indoctrination as opposed to natural forms of achieving "highs", like singing, chanting, trances, meditation etc. I suppose the outcome is less easy to control!A cult of alcoholics. Hmmmm. Sounds like Alcoholics Anonymous. No hang on, they just substitute one "drug" for another....!

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Is there an evolutionary theory for inspiration?

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I suspect that those that are more inspirational, like musicians, poets, artists and leaders often have more sex.

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When i"m writting music and a specific melody comes to my mind I use my intellect to write it down (so that i can communicate it with the rest of the band) and arrange it but how do you explain that moment of inspiration that made that melody come out in your head? Once again it is spiritual.

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Who would ever want to leave these sorts of emotive religious explainations of reality for the stark world in which we are merely a complex bag of chemical soup?Jazzlover, never be underwhelmed by the experiences of the world, and the human mind and body, even if it is the mere result of complex chemical interactions. I experience the same levels of euphoria that you do from various aspects of reality: music, nature, sports and relationships. I just do not need to resort to a fantastical explanation of it all to make it any better.

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If music is for mating how come angels don't mate?

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That's a bit left field.

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Because music is not for mating but instead to deliver a messege.

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Yes, it's for communication, but it's sexually orientated, like everything humans do. Reproduction being the sole purpose of all life, afterall.This message has been edited by Gilgamesh, 08-12-2004 02:37 AM