Tonal Pitch Structure as a Tool of Social Consolidation

This paper proposes that in the course of evolution pitch structure became a human specific tool of communication the function of which is to induce emotional states such as uncertainty and cohesion. By the means of eliciting these emotions during collective music performance people are able to unconsciously give cues concerning social acceptance. This is probably one of the reasons why in all cultures people collectively perform tonal music. It is also suggested that tonal pitch structure had been invented socially before it became an evolutionary innovation of hominines. It means that a predisposition to tonally organize pitches evolved by the means of ‘Baldwin effect’ – a process in which natural selection transforms the learned response of an organism into the instinctive response. In the proposed, hypothetical evolutionary scenario of the emergence of tonal pitch structure social forces such as a need for closer cooperation play the crucial role.

Authors:

• Piotr Podlipniak

Keywords:

• Emotion
• evolution
• tonality
• social consolidation.

References:

[1] J. Blacking, How musical is man? Seattle, London: University of
Washington Press, 1973.
[2] A. D. Patel, Music, language, and the brain. Oxford, New York: Oxford
University Press, 2008.
[3] N. J. Conard, M. Malina, S. C. Münzel, “New flutes document the
earliest musical tradition in southwestern Germany” Nature 460, pp.
737–740, 2009.
[4] I. Morley, The prehistory of music: Human evolution, archaeology, and
the origins of musicality. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press,
2013.
[5] S. J. Mithen, The singing Neanderthals: The origins of music, language,
mind, and body. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2006.
[6] B. Tillmann, “Implicit investigations of tonal knowledge in nonmusician
listeners” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1060, pp. 100–
110, 2005.
[7] S. E. Trehub, “The developmental origins of musicality,” Nature
neuroscience 6(7), pp. 669–673, 2003.
[8] I. Peretz, “Brain specialization for music. New evidence from congenital
amusia,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 930, pp. 153–
165, 2001.
[9] W. T. Fitch, “The biology and evolution of music: A comparative
perspective,” Cognition 100(1), pp. 173–215, 2006.
[10] S. Pinker, How the mind works. New York: Norton, 1997.
[11] E. O. Wilson, The social conquest of earth. New York: Liveright Pub.
Corp., 2012.
[12] Ch. R. Darwin, The descent of man and selection in relation to sex.
London: John Murray, 1871.
[13] G. F. Miller, „Evolution of human music through sexual selection,” in
The origins of music. N. L. Wallin, B. Merker, & S. Brown, Eds,
Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2000, pp. 329–360 [14] E. Longhi, A. Karmiloff-Smith, “In the beginning was the song: The
complex multimodal timing of mother-infant musical interaction,”
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27(04), pp. 516–517, 2004.
[15] J. G. Roederer, „The search for a survival value of music,” Music
Perception 1(3), pp. 350–356, 1984.
[16] A. Storr, Music and the mind. New York: Ballantine, 1993.
[17] E. H. Hagen, G. A. Bryant, „Music and dance as a coalition signaling
system,” Human Nature 14(1), pp. 21–51, 2003.
[18] E. H. Hagen, P. Hammerstein, „Did Neanderthals and other early
humans sing? Seeking the biological roots of music in the territorial
advertisements of primates, lions, hyenas, and wolves,” Musicae
Scientiae 13(2 Suppl), pp. 291–320, 2009.
[19] Ch. R. Darwin, On the origin of species by means of natural selection.
London: John Murray, 1859.
[20] G. Theißen, “Saltational evolution: hopeful monsters are here to stay,”
Theory Biosci. 128, pp. 43–51, 2009.
[21] E. W. Large, “On synchronizing movement to music,” Human
Movement Science 19, pp. 527-566, 2000.
[22] I. Cross, “Music and communication in music psychology,” Psychology
of Music 42(6), pp. 809–819, 2014.
[23] J. London, “Three things linguists need to know about rhythm and time
in music,” Empirical Musicology Review 7(1-2), pp. 5–11, 2012.
[24] B. Snyder, Music and memory: An introduction. Cambridge, Mass: MIT
Press, 2001.
[25] N. Bannan, “Harmony and its role in human evolution,” in Music,
language, and human evolution, N. Bannan Ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press, 2012, pp. 288–339.
[26] J. J. Bharucha, M. E. Curtis, K. Paroo, “Musical communication as
alignment of brain states,” in Language and music as cognitive systems,
P. Rebuschat, M. Rohrmeier, & J. A. Hawkins Eds. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 139–155.
[27] D. B. Huron, Sweet anticipation: Music and the psychology of
expectation. Cambridge, Mass, London: MIT, 2006.
[28] E. H. Margulis, On repeat: How music plays the mind. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2014.
[29] M. Tomasello, Origins of human communication. Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press, 2008.
[30] M. Tomasello, M. Carpenter, J. Call, T. Behne, H. Moll, “Understanding
and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition,” The
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(5), pp. 675–691; discussion pp. 691–
735, 2005.
[31] P. N. Juslin, D. Västfjäll, „Emotional responses to music: The need to
consider underlying mechanisms,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31,
pp. 559–621, 2008.
[32] American National Standards Institute (ANSI) 1973. American National
Psychoacoustical Terminology, (American National Institute Standards),
New York.
[33] A. Rakowski, “Perceptual dimensions of pitch and their appearance in
the phonological system of music,” Musicae Scientiae, 3(1), pp. 23–39,
1999.
[34] D. Deutsch, K. Dooley, T. Henthorn, “Pitch circularity from tones
comprising full harmonic series,” The Journal of the Acoustical Society
of America, 124(1), pp. 589–597, 2008.
[35] S. Brown, J. Jordania, “Universals in the world's musics,” Psychology of
Music, 41(2), pp. 229–248, 2013.
[36] C. L. Krumhansl, Cognitive foundations of musical pitch. Oxford
psychology series: Vol. 17. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
[37] F. Lerdahl, R. Jackendoff, A generative theory of tonal music. The MIT
Press series on cognitive theory and mental representation. Cambridge,
Mass: MIT Press, 1983.
[38] D. Perani et al., “Functional specializations for music processing in the
human newborn brain,” Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 107(10), pp. 4758–4763, 2010.
[39] M. Pena et al., “Sounds and silence: An optical topography study of
language recognition at birth” PNAS, 100/20, September 30, pp. 11702–
11705, 2003.
[40] F. Lerdahl, “Musical syntax and its relation to linguistic syntax,” in
Language, music, and the brain. A mysterious relationship, M. A. Arbib
Ed. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2013, pp. 257–272.
[41] M. Rohrmeier, P. Rebuschat, I. Cross, “Incidental and online learning of
melodic structure” Consciousness and Cognition, 20, pp. 214–222,
2011.
[42] R. Dawkins, The selfish gene. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1976
[43] J. M. Baldwin, „A new factor in evolution,” American Naturalist,
30(June, July), pp. 441–451, pp. 536–553, 1896.
[44] G. G. Simpson, “The Baldwin effect,” Evolution, 7(2), pp. 110–117,
1953.
[45] E. Jablonka, M. J. Lamb, Evolution in four dimensions: Genetic,
epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic variation in the history of life.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005.
[46] V. Janik, P. B. Slater, “Vocal learning in mammals,” in Advances in the
Study of Behavior, Slater, P. J. B., Rosenblatt, J. S., Snowdon, C. T., &
Milinski, M. Eds. San Diego, California: Academic Press, 1997, pp. 59–
99.
[47] P. Podlipniak, “The evolutionary origin of pitch centre recognition”
Psychology of Music, OnlinFirst, April 2015.