Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-lfk5g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-27T11:10:42.375Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Music as a trait in evolutionary theory: A musicological perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann Open the ORCID record for Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann [Opens in a new window] ,
Lara Pearson ,
Tina Roeske ,
Christian Grüny  and
Rainer Polak
Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Grüneburgweg 14, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. melanie.wald-fuhrmann@ae.mpg.de lara.pearson@ae.mpg.de tina.roeske@ae.mpg.de christian.grueny@ae.mpg.de rainer.polak@ae.mpg.de https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/research/department-of-music.html
Lara Pearson
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Grüneburgweg 14, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. melanie.wald-fuhrmann@ae.mpg.de lara.pearson@ae.mpg.de tina.roeske@ae.mpg.de christian.grueny@ae.mpg.de rainer.polak@ae.mpg.de https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/research/department-of-music.html
Tina Roeske
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Grüneburgweg 14, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. melanie.wald-fuhrmann@ae.mpg.de lara.pearson@ae.mpg.de tina.roeske@ae.mpg.de christian.grueny@ae.mpg.de rainer.polak@ae.mpg.de https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/research/department-of-music.html
Christian Grüny
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Grüneburgweg 14, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. melanie.wald-fuhrmann@ae.mpg.de lara.pearson@ae.mpg.de tina.roeske@ae.mpg.de christian.grueny@ae.mpg.de rainer.polak@ae.mpg.de https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/research/department-of-music.html
Rainer Polak
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Grüneburgweg 14, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. melanie.wald-fuhrmann@ae.mpg.de lara.pearson@ae.mpg.de tina.roeske@ae.mpg.de christian.grueny@ae.mpg.de rainer.polak@ae.mpg.de https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/research/department-of-music.html
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although it can be straightforward to define the features of physical traits, complex cultural categories tend to elude widely accepted definitions that transcend cultural and historical context. Addressing papers by Mehr et al. and Savage et al., which both aim to explain music as an evolved trait, we discuss fundamental problems that arise from their conceptualizations of music.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 44 , 2021 , e93
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Besseler, H. (1926). Grundfragen des musikalischen Hörens. Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters, 32, 35–52. English edition: Besseler, H. (2011) Fundamental issues of musical listening (M. Pritchard, Transl.). Twentieth-Century Music 8(1), 49–70. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572212000011.Google Scholar
Besseler, H. (1959). Das musikalische Hören der Neuzeit. Akademie-Verlag. Republished as: Besseler, H. (1978) Das musikalische Hören der Neuzeit. In P. Gülke (Ed.), Aufsätze zur Musikästhetik und Musikgeschichte (pp. 104–173). Philipp Reclam.Google Scholar
Brown, S., & Dissanayake, E. (2018). The synthesis of the arts: From ceremonial ritual to “total work of art.” Frontiers in Sociology, 3, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2018.00009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garfinkel, Y. (2018). The evolution of human dance: Courtship, rites of passage, trance, calendrical ceremonies and the professional dancer. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 28(2), 283–298. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774317000865.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habibi, A., & Damasio, A. (2014). Music, feelings, and the human brain. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 24(1), 92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pmu0000033.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanna, J. L. (2010). Dance and sexuality: Many moves. Journal of Sex Research, 47(2), 212–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224491003599744.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Herbert, R. (2011). Reconsidering music and trance: Cross-cultural differences and cross-disciplinary perspectives. Ethnomusicology Forum, 20(2), 201–227. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2011.592402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Killick, A. (2006). Holicipation: Prolegomenon to an ethnography of solitary music-making. Ethnomusicology Forum, 15(2), 273–299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17411910600915414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nettl, B. (2001). Music. In Grove music online. Retrieved 17 Nov., 2020, from https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040476. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.40476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nettl, P. (1921). Beiträge zur Geschichte der Tanzmusik im 17. Jahrhundert. Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft, 4, 257–265.Google Scholar
Patel, A. D. (2018). Music as a transformative technology of the mind: An update. In Honing, H. (Ed.), The origins of musicality (pp. 113–126). MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/10636.003.0009.Google Scholar
Phillips-Silver, J., & Keller, P. E. (2012). Searching for roots of entrainment and joint action in early musical interactions. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, article 26.10.3389/fnhum.2012.00026CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Phillips-Silver, J., & Trainor, L. J. (2005). Feeling the beat: Movement influences infant rhythm perception. Science, 308(5727), 1430. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1110922.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schechner, R. (2013). Performance studies: An introduction (3rd ed.). Routledge.Google Scholar
Simon, A., Riethmüller, A., & Hüschen, H. (2016). Musiké – musica – Musik. In Lütteken, L. (Ed.), MGG Online. Retrieved 17 Nov., 2020, from https://www.mgg-online.com/mgg/stable/12696.Google Scholar
Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meanings of performing and listening. University Press of New England.Google Scholar
Tomlinson, G. (2018). A million years of music. The emergence of human modernity. Zone Books.Google Scholar
Turino, T. (2008). Music as social life: The politics of participation. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Vuoskoski, J. K., Thompson, M. R., Clarke, E. F., & Spence, C. (2014). Crossmodal interactions in the perception of expressivity in musical performance. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 76(2), 591–604. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-013-0582-2.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vuoskoski, J. K., Thompson, M. R., Spence, C., & Clarke, E. F. (2016). Interaction of sight and sound in the perception and experience of musical performance. Music Perception, 33(4), 457–471. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2016.33.4.457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar