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On 05/08/2020 21:10, Keith Henson wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.0.1596658244.1371.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Ben Zaiboc <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ben@zaiboc.net" moz-do-not-send="true"><ben@zaiboc.net></a> woote
snip
</pre>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">My main question, though, is What is it about? Why do we have music in
</pre>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">the first place? That to me is a complete mystery.
I think it is completely obvious. Oliver Sacks reported decades ago
on a woman musician who had a stroke in the area directly opposite her
speech area and completely lost all her music skills (but nothing
else). So we know where music is located in the brain. The origin
was our obviously strongly selected speech abilities. Bilateral
symmetry gave the brain an area that could control speech but was not
used for that and was available for something else, music.
There has probably been evolutionary selection to make humans better
singers, but these two factors are enough to account for the origin of
music in humans, a side effect of speech and bilateral symmetry.</pre>
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<br>
OK, that makes sense as far as singing (pitch) is concerned, but
what about rhythm? I'd say that rhythm is fundamental to music,
indispensable, whereas pitch is secondary and not even necessary.
Drumming can stand alone, and is possibly more ancient than singing.
We don't groove to the tune, it's the beat that's the thing that
gets us going. Any explanations for that? (I don't buy the pre-natal
hearbeat idea. All mammals hear their mother's heartbeat when
they're foetuses, but it only seems to be humans that move their
bodies in time when they hear a regular beat). Speech can have a
rhythm, but it mostly doesn't, so I don't think that's it.<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben Zaiboc</pre>
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