Music: why?

[Herbsman.]

I have read the other music threads and am still curious...

Imagine one point in time when there was no 'music'. What inspired the first music-maker to make music? Maybe one day, that person was out hunting and came across some birds singing. Or maybe he/she heard horses trotting. Maybe they copied the sound of it so they could describe what they'd seen/heard. Maybe that's how it all started - copying sounds that they heard in nature, realising that it sounded good, and making more of it for fun. But why did it sound good, why did their brains like the sound of the rhythm of those horses trotting or the melody of those birds singing so much that they decided to make their own music for pleasure?

Why do some of us feel the need to make music? You could describe the music making process as controlling and organizing sound. As well as being a creative outlet, could it also somehow related to a need to control things, to organise things, to put things into some sort of order that makes sense?

Why do we enjoy listening it? Why does it sound good? Why does a beat sound good? Why does it make us happy, why do our brains like hearing it and making it?

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

dont forget he rhythm of out own bodies, walking, lying very still and listening to your heart, or running with the pounding of your feet with the sound of your breath combining to make a rhythm, hearing a heart beat in the womb, rhythm is a constant in our lives whether we notice it or not so maybe this is why we have an inbuilt ability to detect the sounds around us and imitate them?

 

[Negativland]

You hear about the 'geometry of music', it would be interesting to know if any musicologists have related common rhythms or melodies to specific naturally occurring patterns. I'm sure they have.

 

[Herbsman.]

In some species potential mates are attracted to who's got the best quality fur, or who's the strongest, the fastest, the fittest, the loudest, te most aggressive. Why, in some bird species, are potential mates attracted the birds who sing the best song?

Does being able to create the best music mean that they have better genes than other birds in their species? Or, does having better genes make them sing better songs?

Is the ability to sing the best song related to other abilities that would make them a better mate (e.g. problem solving, organisation, improvisation)?

 

[User 301X/5.1]

Why do we enjoy listening it? Why does it sound good? Why does a beat sound good? Why does it make us happy, why do our brains like hearing it and making it?

I think we like music because it is an abstract representation of the actual structure of space-time.

Firstly with respect to time: It is nonsense to consider music without the dimension of time. Other art forms require the three special dimensions but music is (on the surface anyway) completely independent of the three special dimensions. What is time? A pretty difficult question for anybody to really answer but music seems to know exactly what time is, we understand music and therefore music is an art form which enables us to appreciate the dimension of time.

Secondly with respect to special dimensions: This is pure speculation but I reckon that in addition to the regular beat patterns in music which reflect our appreciation of the time dimension I think the melodies and patterns in the structure of the music are reflecting our appreciation of the structure of the special dimensions of the universe. This would not only include the 3 dimensions we are familiar with but music could be actually a product of geometrical properties of hidden extra dimensions of space.

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

Is the ability to sing the best song related to other abilities that would make them a better mate (e.g. problem solving, organisation, improvisation)?

not for humans no, its who has the biggest willy

 

[Herbsman.]

I understood the first bit of your post, and I agree, but this bit

Secondly with respect to special dimensions: This is pure speculation but I reckon that in addition to the regular beat patterns in music which reflect our appreciation of the time dimension I think the melodies and patterns in the structure of the music are reflecting our appreciation of the structure of the special dimensions of the universe. This would not only include the 3 dimensions we are familiar with but music could be actually a product of geometrical properties of hidden extra dimensions of space.

 

[Crispy]

You hear about the 'geometry of music', it would be interesting to know if any musicologists have related common rhythms or melodies to specific naturally occurring patterns. I'm sure they have.

Oh there are plenty of common patterns. It is all based off simple ratios, after all. The fibonacci sequence crops up all over the place. For eg. the common intervals used in music are the tone, the third, the fifth and the eighth. (1), 2, 3, 5, 8 you say? Well I never

 

[laptop]

Somewhere I read of a neurologist describing the point of music as the "pleasure of knowing what comes next".

Must have been in a book, because google knoweth it not.

 

[Crispy]

That's a good one. But then there's also the pleasure of the unexpected. Otherwise jazz wouldn't be any fun.

 

[if6were9]

I have read the other music threads and am still curious...

Imagine one point in time when there was no 'music'. What inspired the first music-maker to make music? Maybe one day, that person was out hunting and came across some birds singing. Or maybe he/she heard horses trotting. Maybe they copied the sound of it so they could describe what they'd seen/heard. Maybe that's how it all started - copying sounds that they heard in nature, realising that it sounded good, and making more of it for fun. But why did it sound good, why did their brains like the sound of the rhythm of those horses trotting or the melody of those birds singing so much that they decided to make their own music for pleasure?

Why do some of us feel the need to make music? You could describe the music making process as controlling and organizing sound. As well as being a creative outlet, could it also somehow related to a need to control things, to organise things, to put things into some sort of order that makes sense?

Why do we enjoy listening it? Why does it sound good? Why does a beat sound good? Why does it make us happy, why do our brains like hearing it and making it?

S'funny you should say that because I was out in the woods 2 days ago thinking the same thing. I was bored in front of a very long woodpile of longitutudinally cut wood standing there with a piece of wood which had the same shape as a mallet.

Testing the different sizes and dimensions of the wood was nice, you got a different sound from each branch, some went boing and others went boing and this was very resonant.

I managed to pass some bored minutes hypnotising myself finding some sort of rhythm out of all of them ( the sheer choice was too much ) but I what was making me happy as I was doing in was making and participating in a personal ritual.

I reckon its pretty much the same thing if you go to a club and hear and feel the bom bom in your bones its a cleansing thing and purification thing and a preparatory thing -for hunting, fishing or going back on monday to the call centre. The rhytmn is something that both precedes us ( heartbeat ) and brings us back together. Its primal, innit...

 

[Crispy]

I reckon music came before language, but that's just a romantic idea, I have no evidence.

 

[Gavin Bl]

possibly the use of implements to communicate, regular structures to the sound indicating it to be a human signal, as opposed to just random noise.

I guess its also about collective enjoyment in a species for whom social organisation was central to its success - in the same way that story telling used to be loved in pre-industrial societies, a shared experience that everyone can talk about later, binds everyone together, and other hippy crap like that.

 

[laptop]

That's a good one. But then there's also the pleasure of the unexpected. Otherwise jazz wouldn't be any fun.

But in squeak-boop jazz, at least, the unexpected is precisely what you expect - soloists just tease you as to when it happens

 

[ardalin]

Probably the first question that needs to be answered is: Why do we find anything beautiful at all? Why do we appreciate sunsets? If we can understand art and beauty in one domain, the others may follow.

There is an argument made by a number of people (I read it in the Blank Slate by Steven Pinker) and described above, that being able to produce good music would be seen as a sign of good genes, and therefore be selected for. Bower birds build beautiful nests in order to attract mates. A pretty nest isn't a better nest, but you have to admire somebody who can build a kick-ass nest.

At least, that's the idea

---
http://coglanglab.org

 

[Aldebaran]

That's a good one. But then there's also the pleasure of the unexpected. Otherwise jazz wouldn't be any fun.

Improvisation follows what your subconscience knows.
Of course for those who listen there is the pleasure unexpected.

salaam.

 

[Aldebaran]

To me music is mathematics. In sound. Maybe it is the human interest in structuring his life that made him discover and cultivate this.

salaam.

 

[nosos]

That's a good one. But then there's also the pleasure of the unexpected. Otherwise jazz wouldn't be any fun.

Experimental jazz once completely sent me under when I was stoned. It's like the clock in the inquisitor's office in Discworld that goes tick with a perennially belated tock. I couldn't relax and settle into the mindstate I was in because of the constant frustration of my expectations. The world seemed profoundly not as it ought to have been. I like the idea that music is the "pleasure of knowing what comes next". It's an exploration of our expectations carried by the object through the lived space of time. In art, we impose time on the medium. In music, the medium imposes time on us and, when it's really fucking good, the imposition is transcended and there is just music.

 

[Demosthenes]

I think we like music because it is an abstract representation of the actual structure of space-time.

Firstly with respect to time: It is nonsense to consider music without the dimension of time. Other art forms require the three special dimensions but music is (on the surface anyway) completely independent of the three special dimensions. What is time? A pretty difficult question for anybody to really answer but music seems to know exactly what time is, we understand music and therefore music is an art form which enables us to appreciate the dimension of time.

Secondly with respect to special dimensions: This is pure speculation but I reckon that in addition to the regular beat patterns in music which reflect our appreciation of the time dimension I think the melodies and patterns in the structure of the music are reflecting our appreciation of the structure of the special dimensions of the universe. This would not only include the 3 dimensions we are familiar with but music could be actually a product of geometrical properties of hidden extra dimensions of space.

I thought this was quality.

I'd add to that that it's a space in which people can tell stories about personal/cultural/spiritual conflicts and resolutions.

eta. sometimes it's a space in which people can have personal/cultural/spiritual conflicts and resolutions. -- Big improvement on war.

 

[Herbsman.]

oops I forgot to ask, can anyone recommend a book related to the OP, that I would find interesting?