How important is music?

[Megan]

Did music come before structured languages as a means of communication.
And is the study of music important in furthering our understanding of the human condition?

[Peter]

I think there have been studies suggesting this is the case, but it depends on how you define music. I suppose there were grunts and groans and wailing first - a bit like modern pop really!!

I think without a doubt that the study of music at an early age and the learning of a musical instrument are highly beneficial for the development of a child in all sorts of areas that go beyond music itself.

[Sorrano]

The study of music definitely shows human progression throughout the centuries. We can see how music was developed in conjunction with human development; how religion and secularism parallel musical evolution. Music is at the pinnacle of human art and reflects the direction of society as a whole.

[Peter]

The study of music definitely shows human progression throughout the centuries. We can see how music was developed in conjunction with human development; how religion and secularism parallel musical evolution. Music is at the pinnacle of human art and reflects the direction of society as a whole.

Actually if you think about it I think the progress of music has been remarkably slow. With all the amazing ancient civilisations (there are depictions of the harp from 15000BC in France, and flutes from China that are still playable dating from around 9000BC), how it could have taken so many centuries to arrive at polyphony I'm not sure!

I wonder then as we know so little of how ancient music sounded if they were more advanced than we know and then this knowledge was lost?

[Peter]

Did music come before structured languages as a means of communication.
And is the study of music important in furthering our understanding of the human condition?

Darwin wrote in the origin of species “I conclude that musical notes and rhythm were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex”!

[Megan]

By Darwin's own admission, nature is red in tooth and claw, so what on earth would the spieces need to do in charming one an other when in evolutionary terms there is just a simple warfare of the strongest with winner take all.
Darwin doesn't understand music like he didn't understand so many things.
Music is immensely complex and is one of the highest faculties that we have and is really a product of our highest thoughts and civilization.
Evolution by its own definition is going from a simple to a complex state, and charm and music are complex states.


Look at this fantastic and highly charged renaissance court dance, Kapsberger's Canario, to see what I am getting at, it is about pure seduction, it is a product of the most exquisite taste, courtesy and civilization , and is as far removed from Darwin's simplistic ideas as you can get .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtDyH...eature=related


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[Preston]

I would like to say that I believe music can be of unimaginable importance and good, though, that it can also be sickening. Kind of a "heaven and hell" thing going on with music.

By Darwin's own admission, nature is red in tooth and claw, so what on earth would the spieces need to do in charming one an other when in evolutionary terms there is just a simple warfare of the strongest with winner take all.

Do you have proof of Darwin's own admission? I am curious.

Darwin doesn't understand music like he didn't understand so many things. Music is immensely complex and is one of the highest faculties that we have and is really a product of our highest thoughts and civilization.

Megan, what things do you refer to that Darwin does not understand? Do you have evidence of his lack of understanding music?

I believe music can be complex - though I also believe that music represents human nature - and that human nature as a whole is caked with sin. Meaning that most music is quite rotten and diseased.

Evolution by its own definition is going from a simple to a complex state, and charm and music are complex states.

As I said above, I believe music can be complex. Though, again to my mind the majority of music belongs in a sewer with the rest of the shit.

...it is about pure seduction, it is a product of the most exquisite taste, courtesy and civilization....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtDyH...eature=related

Lust is the worst form of sin to my mind. So everything you state in the quote above I find quite sickening. As for the video I think it would be better if it had ended with the two dancers being shot in the head, perhaps that is too quick of a death though?

Also, I do wonder what/how you mean civilization? Imo, it is "civilization" (as a whole) that has destroyed a large portion of the world. This civilization (as a whole) I think of is a sickening wasteful consuming disease.

[Megan]

I would like to say that I believe music can be of unimaginable importance and good, though, that it can also be sickening. Kind of a "heaven and hell" thing going on with music.


Do you have proof of Darwin's own admission? I am curious.


Megan, what things do you refer to that Darwin does not understand? Do you have evidence of his lack of understanding music?

I believe music can be complex - though I also believe that music represents human nature - and that human nature as a whole is caked with sin. Meaning that most music is quite rotten and diseased.


As I said above, I believe music can be complex. Though, again to my mind the majority of music belongs in a sewer with the rest of the shit.


Lust is the worst form of sin to my mind. So everything you state in the quote above I find quite sickening. As for the video I think it would be better if it had ended with the two dancers being shot in the head, perhaps that is too quick of a death though?

Also, I do wonder what/how you mean civilization? Imo, it is "civilization" (as a whole) that has destroyed a large portion of the world. This civilization (as a whole) I think of is a sickening wasteful consuming disease.

Hi Preston,

Well really, all I would say is I do not regard Darwin's theories to be either true or scientific , or particularly rational and intelligent. The idea we descended from apes is frankly laughable. There is no evidence for this whatsoever, and most of the attempts in this area , to show bits of bone etc.. are complete frauds.
Ok, in the animal world there might be a bit of devolopment, but evolution from one species to another, I mean purrleeeze, do me a favour.

Yes, civilization is in a poor state, but that's not really the point of this thread. It is true man has become more civilized, and without being politically incorrect, you know we are not like hunter gatherers living out in the open, though if the economy goes the way it is, we might end up that way.

Music is very interesting because it is an abstract art form that as I was saying reflects all our higher faculties, well at least the classical variety is.

I was reading an article by an American anthropologist a couple of years back, and he had gone to live with a tribe in the Amazon jungle, he had learnt their language and literally had gone native and didn't want to leave them. He was saying that in their language they had no word for music or love, or beauty, in fact virtually no words for any emotion at all , or things to do with the mind, he said it was an extraordinary experience, because all they spoke about was the river and fish and food, so I suppose what we would call civilization was just something entirely not a part of them as people.

I would have thought that western music from about 1500 onwards is pretty sophisticated in terms of its harmonic structure, notes, layers of sound etc. and it is interesting we were talking about ancient civilizations and what the sounds they had . They were different to us , i remember reading once that Gladstone , who was a classical scholar and a great British PM, once said something very odd about colours in the ancient world. He said the Greeks didn't know the difference between blue and yellow, not that they were colour blind or anything, but that these colours kind of didn't exist, or they didn't know of them. Really we don't know much about ancient music and the whole sound world of the ancients as Peter was mentioning.
The whole authentic instrument movement is only about 50 years old and there is such a vast amount of research that is needed.
I remember once hearing the sound that was recorded on one of the first radio's of Tutankhamen's trumpet, blown by a military bugler about 1900 , it found in the tombs at Thebes. Apparently this was the first time it had been heard for 3000 + years.


We best stay off the subject of Darwin, because it is deviating form the thread.

[Peter]

Hi Preston,


Yes, civilization is in a poor state, but that's not really the point of this thread. It is true man has become more civilized, and without being politically incorrect, you know we are not like hunter gatherers living out in the open, though if the economy goes the way it is, we might end up that way.


We best stay off the subject of Darwin, because it is deviating form the thread.

Indeed Darwin is obviously best avoided here and my original reference was meant in jest! As to the human race being 'more civilised' this again is highly debatable with the atrocities of the 20th century far out-stripping all previous centuries. The 21st century has hardly begun much better - yes we are more technologically advanced but this doesn't equate to more civilised.

This leads me naturally to composers, poets and artists who were influenced by the horrors of war and I don't think any in history match those of the first half of the 20th century. The music of Haydn, Schubert and Beethoven is largely untouched by the Napoleonic wars - they do not reveal the suffering that is found in Shostakovich (amongst others) for example.

[Megan]

Indeed Darwin is obviously best avoided here and my original reference was meant in jest! As to the human race being 'more civilised' this again is highly debatable with the atrocities of the 20th century far out-stripping all previous centuries. The 21st century has hardly begun much better - yes we are more technologically advanced but this doesn't equate to more civilised.

This leads me naturally to composers, poets and artists who were influenced by the horrors of war and I don't think any in history match those of the first half of the 20th century. The music of Haydn, Schubert and Beethoven is largely untouched by the Napoleonic wars - they do not reveal the suffering that is found in Shostakovich (amongst others) for example.

Peter,
That is a very interesting point about Haydn, his house was surrounded by Napoleon's troops and Napoleon himself said how much he had admired Papa Haydn. Haydn was broken hearted over the Austrian defeats and detested Napoleon and everything he stood for and basically told Nap. to get stuffed, good for him!
It is very intersting to think how his inner turmoil maybe reflected in some of his symphonies and perhaps his string quartets, particularly the later ones. Beethoven's turmoil , I think , is a different thing , because he was just disappointed in Nap. and the revolution being really such a naive politically.
Shostakovich, absolotely in the symphonies you can hear the machine gun fire of the Nazi invasion and the earlier Russian revolution.

The thing about technology is that we have all these gadgets for communication, but we seem to have less and less to say.
Chesterton said, the means of communication was an inverse proportion to the importance of what is actually said.
The great exception is the Beethoven reference site, which contains jewels which are casually scattered about, enlightenment and appreciation for the whole world.

.

[Preston]

Hi Megan, . It is your thread and if you wish to stay off the subject of Darwin then I will. Though, I do want to say one thing - whether Darwin's theories are correct (in the sense of perfect precision) I do not know, though I do know that I cannot agree with what you have written about Darwin or evolution - by any means. To my understanding, what you wrote is simply wrong/incorrect.

Back on topic:

...well at least the classical variety is.

I do believe that the purest of music was written by a few select classical composers, so in a sense I agree with you somewhat. Though, it is wrong and stereotypical to say that the entire output of classical music "reflects our higher faculties". There have been 1,000s of classical musicians (which came from all different walks of life) while some could write good music and some could not. Imo, many had nothing in their music or themselves worth of value concerning "higher faculties".

[Megan]

Preston,

All I'm really saying is that classical music generally represents through its sheer complexity an intellectual and emotional challenge, and that is why we all love it so much, because it pushes us and extends us every which way.

[Peter]

Peter,
That is a very interesting point about Haydn, his house was surrounded by Napoleon's troops and Napoleon himself said how much he had admired Papa Haydn. Haydn was broken hearted over the Austrian defeats and detested Napoleon and everything he stood for and basically told Nap. to get stuffed, good for him!
It is very intersting to think how his inner turmoil maybe reflected in some of his symphonies and perhaps his string quartets, particularly the later ones. Beethoven's turmoil , I think , is a different thing , because he was just disappointed in Nap. and the revolution being really such a naive politically.
Shostakovich, absolotely in the symphonies you can hear the machine gun fire of the Nazi invasion and the earlier Russian revolution.

The thing about technology is that we have all these gadgets for communication, but we seem to have less and less to say.
Chesterton said, the means of communication was an inverse proportion to the importance of what is actually said.
The great exception is the Beethoven reference site, which contains jewels which are casually scattered about, enlightenment and appreciation for the whole world.

.

You're absolutely right - people talking for hours about nothing, loving the sounds of their own voices and paying for the privilege - we've lost the art of listening which is why CM doesn't appeal to the empty instant gratification demanded by society. Beethoven says more in 2 bars than most people in a lifetime!

[dice45]

Polyphony ... complexity

Hello all,

i'd like to come back to the initial question. Having read lots of books about music, and having studied human nature since school, i have come to the the conclusion that man must have developed music and spoken language simultaneously. Both are forms of communication and our ancestors must have been gifted with a superior talent to communicate, first non-verbally (like all animals do) but then more-and-more verbally, trading decriptions of things first, then developing concepts, those concepts becoming slowly more complicated and abstract. The engineer in me tends to judge things by how well they work and our species must have "worked" exceptionally well and so it evolved, and very successfully so. Homo sapiens neanderthaliensis is considered by anthropologists to be of atleast equal intellect as as homo sapiens sapiens, with a bigger brain. The evolutionary edge of homo sapiens sapiens was his talent to communicate, not his intellect. He survived and thrived, Neanderthal man became exctinct. The scientists are quite confident that they have evidence for that.

Actually if you think about it I think the progress of music has been remarkably slow. With all the amazing ancient civilisations (there are depictions of the harp from 15000BC in France, and flutes from China that are still playable dating from around 9000BC), how it could have taken so many centuries to arrive at polyphony I'm not sure!

I wonder then as we know so little of how ancient music sounded if they were more advanced than we know and then this knowledge was lost?

above i said that i consider music as a form of communication and while no evidence can be obtained except found stone age musical instruments, music must have evolved with other means of communication, with language and with art.

And we cannot say to which level complexity was developing. The (lack of) musical compexity observed at the first sheet music coming from ~900 AD is just a status message: we cannot tell if this was a starting point AFA musical complexity is concerned or if the music had lost comlexity and refinement from earlier ages because we have no records from those times.

Peter, you say that there are harps from 15000 BC and flutes from 9000 BC.
Those flutes i have seen, i did not know about the harps (i do know the ancient Greeks used lyras which are a form of harps). The flutes i have seen at an exhibition look very similar to Japanese shakuhachi flutes. Those Japanese flutes produce an enourmous amount of overtones and if more than one flutist is playing, you have forced polyphony already because the overtones are continuously changing and carry more weight than the fundamental note played.

Harps are polyphonic instruments: i would be very surprised if the musicians used one string after the other. It is just a question of time until some strange human specimen disobeys his teacher and plays more than one tone at the same time. Of course he gets slapped and punished but secretly is excited by his discovery and so he explores the polyphony in secret until he can show something so new and whole and exciting that the rest of the group is enchanted and the success cannot be talked away anymore.

Another point: first musical instruments were probably drums and percussion instruments. "Percussion" does not mean the instrument in question coiuld not be tuned to different kex notes. Now if more than one person plays percussion instruments, we have polyphony and polyrhthmics.

I imagine the group gathering and playing their percussion instruments and beating themselves into a trance and the shaman was dancing until he or she fell down exhausted and in a very deep trance leading to the shaman's journey.

Good point: the shaman was not necessary male, shamanism researchers have proof of female shamans as well. As the shaman was a powerful figure in the stone age, this would be a strong indication that the later stone age society was not strictly patriarchial. Which leads me to the conclusion that the male could not simply use a big stick to encharme the desired female or to simply throw her over his shoulder and take her with him. To me it seems quite probable that one partner used music to encharm the desired other.

For us today, i think that music (and understanding music to some extent) makes makes a person more whole. If a parent spots interest or excitement about music, be it listening to it or playing it himself. he/she should by any means support his child in that. But he/she also should respect that the child has an approach to music differing form his/her own or none at all. One should not force his child to music, IMO.

[Peter]

Interesting Bernhard - Yes although it is generally thought that the harp first appeared in Mesopotamia around 3500BC, there are rock paintings of a harp like instrument in France from 15000BC.

There are claims that a hollow bear bone femur found in Slovenia in 1996 is a Neanderthal flute tuned to the modern diatonic scale dating from around 43,000 BC. The only problem is that Neanderthals were not previously considered capable of the technology to work bones, let alone the artistic capacity. Another flute, made from a swan's wing bone discovered in the Geissenklosterle Cave in Germany, is estimated at 36,000 years old.