The origin of music and its implications in our lives.

The importance of music, and how it has made us evolve.

In one way or another, music is present in almost every sphere of our lives.. It can be, for example, inserted into a scene of a horror movie to increase tension and angst, or it can be used during a fitness class to keep its attendees in the right rhythm.

On the other hand, any self-respecting social event cannot be without a melody, even if it is in the background. From the famous wedding march by Richard Wagner's famous wedding march wedding march at a wedding to the bands and singer-songwriters that set the mood in bars at night, musicality is always present.

Individuals in all human societies can perceive musicality and be emotionally sensitive to sound (Amodeo, 2014). It is easy for anyone to know when a song pleases them, makes them sad, or even elates them. And, like many other things in our lives, we accept the existence of music as something natural. However, analyzed from a scientific point of view, the ability to create and enjoy music is something quite complex and has attracted the attention of researchers from many different fields.

• Recommended article: "What music do intelligent people listen to?"

Music may have favored survival

Since a few decades ago, scientists investigating evolution have set out to find the origin of music in the Biological history of human beings.. This perspective is based on the theory of natural selection, stating that it is the needs imposed by the environment that shape the design of all species, since the individuals that have the best adaptations (physiological or psychological) at any given time will survive.

These beneficial traits arise from various genetic mutations, which, if positive for survival, are more likely to be transmitted from generation to generation. In the case of humans, the pressure of natural selection has affected the structure and functions of the brain over thousands of years, with the design that allowed the most functional behaviors to survive.

However, our species is much more complex. Although natural selection has shaped the biological design of the organism, it is culture and what we learn throughout life that ends up defining who we are..

With these ideas in mind, many ethologists, neuroscientists, musicologists and biologists agree that there was a time in history when music helped our ancestors to survive in a harsh and hostile environment. In a review of the subject, Martín Amodeo (2014) states that the ability to appreciate sound art may even have played an essential role in the emergence of the human species. These statements may come as a surprise since, nowadays, the use given to music is apparently playful and does not involve a matter of life or death, fortunately.

When did music arise?

Musicality would be prior to the appearance of art and language.the latter two being the almost exclusive property of Homo sapiens. Hominids prior to humans would not have the mental capacity to elaborate a complex language, having to stick to a pre-linguistic communication system based on sounds that changed rhythm and melody. In turn, they accompanied these sounds with gestures and movements, representing as a whole simple meanings about the emotions they wanted to convey to their peers (Mithen, 2005). Although there was still a long way to go in history to reach today's level, music and verbal language would have their primitive starting point here.

However, although music and verbal language have a common origin, there is a great difference between the two. The sounds we assign to words bear no relation to their meaning in real life. For example, the word "dog" is an abstract concept that has been randomly attributed to this mammal throughout culture. The advantage of language would be that certain sounds can refer to very precise propositions. On the contrary, the sounds of music would be somewhat natural and it could be said that: "music seems to mean what it sounds" (Cross, 2010) although the meaning of this is often ambiguous and cannot be expressed with exact words.

In this regard, researchers at the University of Sussex (Fritz et. al, 2009) conducted a cross-cultural study in support of this thesis. In their research, they studied the recognition of three basic emotions (happiness, sadness and fear) present in various Western songs by members of the African Mafa tribe, who had never had contact with other cultures and, of course, had never heard the songs presented to them. The Mafas recognized the songs as happy, sad, or fear-provoking, so it seems that these basic emotions can also be recognized and expressed through music.

In summary, one of the main functions of music, in its origins, may have been the induction of moods in other people (Cross, 2010). (Cross, 2010), which can be used to try to modify the behavior of others based on objectives.

We carry music inside us since we are born.

Another of the pillars of today's music can be found in the maternal-filial relationship. Ian Cross, Professor of Music and Science and researcher at the University of Cambridge, has studied the age of acquisition by babies of all the faculties that allow musical perception, concluding that before the first year of life they have already developed these abilities to the level of an adult. The development of verbal language, on the other hand, will take longer.

To cope with this, the child's parents resort to a peculiar form of communication. As described by Amodeo (2014), when a mother or father speaks to an infant they do so differently than when establishing an adult conversation. When speaking to the newborn while being rocked rhythmically, a higher-than-normal pitched voice is used, using repetitive patterns, somewhat exaggerated intonations and very marked melodic curves. This way of expressing oneself, which would be an innate language between the child and the mother, would help to establish a very deep emotional connection between the two. Parents who in hostile times had this ability would find it easier to care for their offspring because, for example, they would be able to calm a child's crying, preventing it from attracting predators. Therefore, those with this pre-musical ability would be more likely to have their genes and characteristics survive and be propagated over time.

Martin Amodeo argues that the rhythmic movements and unique vocalizations performed by the parent would give rise to singing and music. Moreover, the ability of infants to pick up on this would be maintained throughout life and would allow them, in adulthood, to feel emotions when listening to a certain combination of sounds, for example, in the form of a musical composition. This mechanism of maternal-filial interaction is common to all cultures, so it is considered universal and innate.

Music makes us feel more united

There are also theories based on the social function of music, since it favors group cohesion.. For ancient humans, cooperation and solidarity in a hostile environment was key to survival. A pleasurable group activity such as the production and enjoyment of music would cause the individual to secrete a high amount of endorphins, something that would occur jointly if the melody is listened to by several people at the same time. This coordination, as music allows the transmission of basic feelings and emotions, would make it possible to obtain a "generalized emotional state in all members of a group" (Amodeo, 2014).

Several studies affirm that group interaction through music favors empathy, consolidates community identity, facilitates community integration and, as a consequence, maintains its stability (Amodeo, 2014). A cohesive group through activities such as music would therefore see its survival facilitated since it would promote cooperation between large groups of people.

Applying it also to our days, the beauty of music when enjoyed in a group would be sustained by two factors. On the one hand, there is a biological factor that allows us to elicit shared emotions before, for example, a single song.. This favors the feeling of mutual affiliation (Cross, 2010). The second factor is based on the ambiguity of music. Thanks to our complex cognitive capacities, human beings have the ability to attribute meanings to what they hear based on their personal experience. Because of this, in addition to promoting basic emotions, music allows each person to give a personal interpretation to what they hear, adjusting it to their current state.

Musical practice improves our cognitive abilities

The last factor that seems to have helped the development of music as such a complex cultural factor is its ability to influence other cognitive abilities. Like almost any skill that is learned, musical training modifies the brain in its functions and structure.. 

In addition, there is a strong basis indicating that musical training has a positive influence on other domains such as spatial reasoning, mathematics or linguistics (Amodeo, 2014).

Similarities in other species

To conclude, it should be mentioned that animals such as beluga whales and many birds have followed analogous evolutionary processes. Although the primary function of song in many birds (and in some marine mammals) is to communicate states or to attempt to influence other animals (e.g., in courtship through song or to mark territory), it appears that they sometimes sing purely for fun. In addition, some birds have an aesthetic sense, some birds have an aesthetic sense and try to make compositions that, analyzed musically, follow certain rules..

Conclusions

In conclusion, since music seems to be something as natural as life itself, we should encourage the knowledge of it from childhood, although unfortunately it has lost weight in the current educational system. It stimulates our senses, relaxes us, makes us vibrate and unites us as a species, so that those who classify it as the greatest heritage we have are not far from reality.

Bibliographical references:

• Amodeo, M.R. (2014). Origen de la Música como un Rasgo Adaptativo en el Humano. Revista Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento, 6(1), 49-59.
• Cross, I. (2010). La música en la cultura y la evolución. Epistemus, 1(1), 9-19.
• Fritz, T., Jentschke, S., Gosselin, N., Sammler, D., Peretz, I., Turner, R., Friederici, A. & Koelsch, S. (2009). Universal recognition of three basic emotions in music. Current biology, 19(7), 573-576.
• Mithen, S.J. (2005). The singing Neanderthals: The origins of music, language, mind and body. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.