Musicality as an Upbeat to Music: Introduction and Research Agenda

Honing, Henkjan

doi:10.7551/mitpress/10636.003.0004

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Since Darwin and Spencer initially discussed it ( Kleinman, 2015 ), evolutionary theorizations about musicality have improved and diversified. Many empirical articles (e.g., Hagen and Bryant, 2003 ; Varella et al, 2010 , 2022 ; Pearce et al, 2016 ), review articles (e.g., Hauser and McDermott, 2003 ; Fitch, 2006 ; Snowdon et al, 2015 ; Killin, 2018 ; Fink et al, 2021 ), books (e.g., Wallin et al, 2000 ; Mithen, 2005 ; Ball, 2010 ; Morley, 2013 ; Honing, 2018 ), and special issues ( Peretz, 2006 ; Honing et al, 2015b ; Nikolsky and Perlovsky, 2020 ) have been published, including guiding principles to improve/advance the field ( Honing and Ploeger, 2012 ; Fitch, 2015 ; Merker et al, 2015 ; Currie and Killin, 2016 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nocturnal selective pressures on the evolution of human musicality as a missing piece of the adaptationist puzzle

Varella

2023

Front. Psychol.

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Human musicality exhibits the necessary hallmarks for biological adaptations. Evolutionary explanations focus on recurrent adaptive problems that human musicality possibly solved in ancestral environments, such as mate selection and competition, social bonding/cohesion and social grooming, perceptual and motor skill development, conflict reduction, safe time-passing, transgenerational communication, mood regulation and synchronization, and credible signaling of coalition and territorial/predator defense. Although not mutually exclusive, these different hypotheses are still not conceptually integrated nor clearly derived from independent principles. I propose The Nocturnal Evolution of Human Musicality and Performativity Theory in which the night-time is the missing piece of the adaptationist puzzle of human musicality and performing arts. The expansion of nocturnal activities throughout human evolution, which is tied to tree-to-ground sleep transition and habitual use of fire, might help (i) explain the evolution of musicality from independent principles, (ii) explain various seemingly unrelated music features and functions, and (iii) integrate many ancestral adaptive values proposed. The expansion into the nocturnal niche posed recurrent ancestral adaptive challenges/opportunities: lack of luminosity, regrouping to cook before sleep, imminent dangerousness, low temperatures, peak tiredness, and concealment of identity. These crucial night-time features might have selected evening-oriented individuals who were prone to acoustic communication, more alert and imaginative, gregarious, risk-taking and novelty-seeking, prone to anxiety modulation, hedonistic, promiscuous, and disinhibited. Those night-time selected dispositions may have converged and enhanced protomusicality into human musicality by facilitating it to assume many survival- and reproduction-enhancing roles (social cohesion and coordination, signaling of coalitions, territorial defense, antipredatorial defense, knowledge transference, safe passage of time, children lullabies, and sexual selection) that are correspondent to the co-occurring night-time adaptive challenges/opportunities. The nocturnal dynamic may help explain musical features (sound, loudness, repetitiveness, call and response, song, elaboration/virtuosity, and duetting/chorusing). Across vertebrates, acoustic communication mostly occurs in nocturnal species. The eveningness chronotype is common among musicians and composers. Adolescents, who are the most evening-oriented humans, enjoy more music. Contemporary tribal nocturnal activities around the campfire involve eating, singing/dancing, storytelling, and rituals. I discuss the nocturnal integration of musicality’s many roles and conclude that musicality is probably a multifunctional mental adaptation that evolved along with the night-time adaptive landscape.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nocturnal selective pressures on the evolution of human musicality as a missing piece of the adaptationist puzzle

Varella

2023

Front. Psychol.

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“…In contrast, infants younger than 11 months rarely did so. This finding suggests that the process of cultural differentiation of dance into its diverse, culturally-specific forms (Honing, 2018) has early developmental roots. Enculturation is known to impact rhythm perception similarly early, in the second half of the first year of life (Hannon & Trainor, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…“Music” indicates the diverse cultural products generated by and for music-making, such as songs, instruments, and dance styles. In contrast, “musicality” points to the underlying biological capacities that lead us to perceive and produce music—the capacity and natural motivation to engage with music (Honing, 2018). Thus, whereas music as a cultural product is extremely diverse, culture-dependent, and learned, musicality is culturally universal and its components potentially innate.…”

Section: The Developmental Origins Of Dancementioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of dance: Characterizing the development of infants’ earliest dance behavior.

Kim¹,

Schachner²

2023

Developmental Psychology

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Dance is a universal human behavior and a crucial component of human musicality. When and how does the motivation and tendency to move to music develop? How does this behavior change as a process of maturation and learning? We characterize infants’ earliest dance behavior, leveraging parents’ extensive at-home observations of their children. Parents of infants aged 0–24 months (N = 278, 82.7% White, 84.5% in the United States, 46.0% of household incomes ≥$100,000) were surveyed regarding their child’s current and earliest dance behavior (movement by the child, during music, that the parent considered dance), motor development, and their own infant-directed dance. We found that dance begins early: 90% of infants produced recognizable dance by 12.8 months, and the age of onset was not solely a function of motor development. Infants who produced dance did so often, on average almost every day. We also found that dance shows qualitative developmental change over the first 2 years, rather than remaining stable. With motor development, age, and more time dancing, infants used a greater variety of movements in dance, and began to incorporate learned, imitated gestures (80% of infants by 17.9 months). 99.8% of parents reported dancing for or with their infants, raising questions about the role of infant-directed dance. These findings provide evidence that the motivation and tendency to move to music appears extremely early and that both learning and maturation lead to qualitative change in dance behavior during the first 2 years, informing broad questions about the origins of human musicality.

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“…Before proceeding, it is important to clarify that biomusicology chiefly concerns musicality rather than music per se. Whereas music is a cultural phenomenon of infinite variety [ 46 ], musicality is the genetically constrained and reliably developing set of neural capacities on which music production and perception rests [ 33 ]. It should be noted that this view departs significantly from common conceptions of music that center specific cultural manifestations and individual variation in preferences.…”

Section: Developing a Biological Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Biological principles for music and mental health

Bowling

2023

Transl Psychiatry

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Efforts to integrate music into healthcare systems and wellness practices are accelerating but the biological foundations supporting these initiatives remain underappreciated. As a result, music-based interventions are often sidelined in medicine. Here, I bring together advances in music research from neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry to bridge music’s specific foundations in human biology with its specific therapeutic applications. The framework I propose organizes the neurophysiological effects of music around four core elements of human musicality: tonality, rhythm, reward, and sociality. For each, I review key concepts, biological bases, and evidence of clinical benefits. Within this framework, I outline a strategy to increase music’s impact on health based on standardizing treatments and their alignment with individual differences in responsivity to these musical elements. I propose that an integrated biological understanding of human musicality—describing each element’s functional origins, development, phylogeny, and neural bases—is critical to advancing rational applications of music in mental health and wellness.

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Musicality as an Upbeat to Music: Introduction and Research Agenda

Cited by 8 publications

References 22 publications

Nocturnal selective pressures on the evolution of human musicality as a missing piece of the adaptationist puzzle

Nocturnal selective pressures on the evolution of human musicality as a missing piece of the adaptationist puzzle

The origins of dance: Characterizing the development of infants’ earliest dance behavior.

Biological principles for music and mental health

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