Music as a Social Adaptation (or, The "Auditory Cheesecake")

The psychologist Steven Pinker once described music as the "auditory cheesecake," meaning that it is an invention that tickles the brain like cheesecake tickles the palate. "Cheesecake packs a sensual wallop unlike anything in the natural world because it is a brew of megadoses of agreeable stimuli which we concocted for the purpose of pressing our pleasure buttons."

So what evolved pleasure buttons does music press? One possibility considered by Pinker includes language, which shares with music the unusual property of being rule-based and recursive and with the power to take a limited stock of units (words of morphemes for language and notes for music) and combining them into a potentially infinite number of structured sequences. However, music gives pleasure through its sound, and language usually doesn't -we typically enjoy it due to what is said, not what it sounds like (On the other hand, there's a pleasure to singing, which has combined the best of music and language...).

But other scholars have proposed music as an adaptation, making the further claim that it exists because it was somehow reproductively advantageous to our ancestors (though the fact that it gives pleasure is not denied). Daniel Levitin, a prominent psychologist who supports this theory points to the idea that synchronous song and dance evolved as social adaptations, helping to establish community and aiding in certain forms of communication. He stresses the importance of music's role in movement, which backs up the theory that the genes of those who created and enjoyed music were able to outcompete the genes of those who couldn't.

Most languages have just one word for both singing and dancing -they aren't exclusive (much to the chagrin of Merce Cunningham, I'm sure). When people listen to music while sitting perfectly still, parts of the motor cortex and cerebellum -areas of the brain that control moving the body's ability to move around- are active. This is why we so often rock and sway to music, an impulse that can be somewhat irresistible, especially to small children. Thus, a theory of music that neglected its relation to movement would be a misstep.

Regarding natural selection, studies have produced evidence that if you move in synchrony with other people, you tend to liked them more, feel more connected to them, have a tendency to be more generous to them. In short, song and dance are the ultimate team-building exercises. This can very well explain the emotional rush that people get from going to a concert or being at a rave. This effect of music may explain why religion is so connected to dancing and music. It has the ability to establish, affirm and maintain a sense of community and solidarity.

All this considered, the potential evolutionary pattern would be that those individuals that could create and enjoy music hung out together, formed communities and cared for one another more easily and more often than those who couldn't. Consequently, the music lovers were more likely to prosper and reproduce. Suddenly, "survival of the fittest" becomes "survival of the musically-inclined."

World Music Fest: Music Outside!!!

Today was a very special day, and unless you are an especially informed person, I'm sure you may not know what made today so special. So I'll tell you. The World Music Fest was held today in Covington! A celebration of music, dance, visual and culinary art from around the world, the world music fest brings together musicians and performers of all different styles to share the musical traditions of the globe. Last year, Eastern and Turkish influences were the highlight, and my experiences this year lead me to applaud the merits of "gypsy jazz" and the combined Russian/Turkish/French music traditions.
Of particular interest to me is that many of the acts this year were performed outside, opening themselves to the outdoor sonic atmosphere. On this particular Saturday, more than a few motorcycles, a fire truck, the rumbles of passing cars, airplanes, bicycles, and toddlers added to the music. At one point, there was a rest in a cellist's performance that was filled with a marvelous tinkling of a spoon stirring in someone's mug. The "unwrapping" of music and exposing it to the outside world -a world that may or may not be at rapt attention- allows an audience to see just how integral music can be in the world, and reciprocally, just how well the sounds of the world can fit into music.
Of note were two performers named Sasha and Sylvan who played for an hour on guitars commonly referred to as "cassaroles" (for the loud and obnoxious sound they project, like a saucepan, the French decided). A wonderfully playful duo, they men led the audience through French and Italy, Slovenia, Romania and Russia with a trip to Alabama for good measure.
Their stylings reminded me of playful banter, of a precocious dancing of these two guitars around each other, each allowing the other to lead before taking its place in the forefront once again. Several of the pieces were performed with lyrics in French, which add another level of experience, especially if you don't speak the language (and an embarrassingly exciting novelty for one, like me, who does).

verdict: 5 John Cage mushrooms for the World Music Fest! =} =} =} =} =}

Vox Arcana

I went to the Vox Arcana concert on Monday with Tim Daisy who we got to meet as part of our freshman fys class. I really enjoyed the concert. The played many new songs along with a couple they played last year and our freshman year. Even the songs I had heard before and very different twist this time around. Tim Daisy did amazing things with his percussions, his style is best described as organized chaos. The way he mixes the use drum sticks and different brushes along with pans creates an interesting combination of sounds. the large xylophone (not sure of the proper name) was very enjoyable, and added a new twist to their performance. He and the other musicians created many different sounds throughout their performances that I did not expect to hear from their instruments. Overall it was an excellent concert that left me feeling very Cageian afterward.

Cage and Cummings

I found out recently that, aside from using other composers' work by playing it upside down, Cage wasn't above using the work of poets either. Cage once set a Cummings poem in his work, Forever and Sunsmell.

Wherelings whenlings
(daughters of ifbut offspring of hopefear
sons of unless and children of almost)
never shall guess the dimension of
him whose
each
foot likes the
here of this earth
whose both
eyes
love
this now of the sky
--endlings of isn't
shall never
begin
to begin to
imagine how (only are shall be were
dawn dark rains snow rain
-bow &
a
moon
's whis-per
in sunset
or thrushes toawrd dusk among whippoorwills
or
three field rock hollyhock forest brook
chickadee
mountain. Mountain)
whycoloured worlds of because do
not stand against yes which is built by
forever & sunsmell
(sometimes a wonder
of wild roses
sometimes)
with morth
over
the barn


Sounds just ripe for use by Cage, right? And to be honest, I rather admire that he used what was made available already by other artists, composers, musicians and writers of his time. It only makes sense that if you're to work with only sounds that already exist, with instruments and tools that have already been invented by someone else, beginning with thoughts that are inevitably influenced by the work of others, then it follows that the work of others can be included. It's part of the array of tools at your disposal. And besides, the faculties of genius lie in perceiving the usual, that which already exists, in an unhabitual way. Perhaps these preexisting works are just waiting to be perceived in such an "unahabitual" way.

Acoustic Ecology

Readers of Sympathies Enlarged will enjoy this page from Wire magazine on the many uses of field recordings and the continuing importance of acoustic ecology.

The Sublime

A friend brought to me the idea yesterday that people may like music so much because it is the easiest way for a visually-biased culture to attain the sublime. I'd never quite thought about it this way before, but I think I have to agree. It could be that the reason so many are easily mesmerized by music is that sonic phenomena works on a plane that very few of us are well accustomed to operating on in such depth, and yet are very receptive to. Rather, we are proficient at categorizing and sorting visual art into preconceived categories, but music takes us by surprise. We can't so easily associate the physics of acoustics with that which we normally encounter, and for many, it's difficult to conceptualize, to put music into a nice and compact little box.

Because our species is so dominated by visual stimuli, and our culture is so biased with its various uses of this means of interpreting the world, music can capitalize on our less-refined auditory senses. It's an encounter of something heavily weighted in that which is outside our operating comfort zone, and when our cochlei are stimulated by the vibrations transmitted in the air, we are more easily able to attain that state in which all is beyond possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation for the moment.

It reminds me of the same way humans so frequently encounter the sublime when we talk about our conceptualization of God. Our ideas of who God is are so vast and unfathomable, that they aren't easily grasped in the normal sense. We revert to analogies and metaphorical comparisons to those things that we do know, but that never adequately describe that which is so beyond our usual parameters of understanding. We are pressed to prove the existence of something so hard to explain and yet we know beyond doubt that is exists because we do experience it directly.

John Cage's Birthday 2010

Today is John Cage's birthday. Sympathies Enlarged is spending the day listening to Cage's works for prepared piano. Here is a link to a wonderful performance of Cage's "Dream" by pianist Stephen Drury.