This is part two of this week’s series called “Music Theory meets Neuroscience.” Part one can be found here in case you missed it. Today I wanted to talk not about what music is, but why it is. Charles Darwin believed– as he did with many things– that music was meant for sexual selection. While this may be partially true, it doesn’t really cover the whole scope. Birds do sing as a part of their courting rituals, but other animals (such as monkeys) use their songs as a warning to stay away from a certain area. And science has only begun to scratch the surface of decoding the complex language that is the song of the humpback whale. The music we create as humans is also a form of communication. But why and how did music evolve in this way?

If we take a look at what portions of the brain activate while listening to music, we find that it isn’t restricted to one specialized portion of the brain. Obviously, the auditory processing portions of the brain are utilized, as well as the areas associated with expectancy, like we discussed yesterday, but memory association, visual perception, and emotional reaction are also involved, suggesting that music is not meant to be listened to, so much as experienced. And even further, the parts of the brain that elicit movement are also activated, which means that dance is an innate part of music, and when we sit or stand there, watching a musician play in concert, that’s actually highly irregular from an evolutionary standpoint. Music was meant for participation.

From what we can tell, human proto-language started out as mimicry of animal noises, events, actions, and other things that we perceived. We began to associate certain tones with certain emotional states. You can still hear this today in baby pre-language. Before they learn words, babies learn to express themselves with tones. And there is a clear difference between the squeal of a happy child versus the annoyed grunting of an angry one. My sixteen month old still doesn’t say any words, but she does have the full emotional spectrum of cries. The tones she emits allow me to understand how she is feeling despite that she lacks the language skills to do so with words. This became the universal trait of music– to build community through aligned mental and emotional states, expressed through song and dance.

Depending on where you are from, your cultural and ethnic background, the exact tones used to elicit a certain response will be different, as music has evolved differently in many parts of the world. So if I am listening to a Chinese Opera, I may not understand what emotions are supposed to be conveyed by the singers. Likewise, someone born and raised in India would likely not have the same emotional response I would when listening to the 1812 Overture. And science has also found that the English language also has tonal coding for expressions of sadness and anger, but not for happiness. The conclusion was that it may be more important to distinguish negative emotions because of the association with possible danger and that we are able to distinguish subtle changes between emotional states.

So music allows us to regulate our emotions together and bond with one another, but it also allows us to form social cohesion by aligning our brains to the same mental state. Think about a battle cry or a sports team chanting before playing a game. And on top of this, whomever we are up against will see our display of camaraderie and know that we are organized and mean serious business. The best display of this that comes to mind is a Hakka, performed by a Polynesian warrior before battle (as well as by the New Zealand soccer team) to intimidate whoever they are up against.

But my favorite reason why music is important to us as human beings is that it is a source of play. Being able to fiddle around on instruments with other musicians is a great bonding experience. It’s also great for children’s imagination. My kids love to dance and make up songs. My youngest wiggles her little tush whenever she hears a song she likes. It’s the cutest.

My thoughts about music are a lot like my thoughts about faith. Science is for the things we can explain, faith is for the things we cannot. Likewise, spoken language is for the thoughts we can explain, music is for the thoughts we cannot. But what do you think? This song and also this one are two of my favorite songs by Projected Twin. How do you feel when you listen to them? Do you think the message would have been the same without the music?