Scuola di Studi Superiori "Ferdinando Rossi" dell'Università degli Studi di Torino - SSST

The origin and evolution of music

The origin and evolution of music

Anno accademico 2019/2020

Sommario insegnamento

• Programma
• Note
• Strumenti didattici

Programma

MODULO 1

Course title

The origin and evolution of music

Lecturer

Andrea Ravignani (andrea.ravignani@gmail.com)

Course overview

Why do humans have music? From a biological, evolutionary perspective, music is a bit of a mystery. Music making, listening, and enjoyment are extremely common in our species. However, compared to other behaviors or neurobiological predispositions, such as speaking or seeing colors, music does not seem to provide an obvious evolutionary advantage. After centuries of pure theoretical speculation, we have reached an empirical turn: hypothesis on why humans have music are being precisely formulated and empirically tested. The aim of this course is to introduce students to the highly interdisciplinary field of music origin and evolution. The course will develop over 3 months, and consist of 10 lectures of 2 hours each. Students will learn about empirical approaches to music evolution spanning the following disciplines: animal behavior, bioacoustics, genetics, neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience, comparative psychology, developmental psychology, music perception, human movement sciences, agent based modeling, linguistics, and speech sciences. The course will be mostly theoretical but will also include practical, hands-on sessions.

Course prerequisites

The course is self-contained and accessible to any student with a science-minded and open attitude.

Language

The course will be taught in English

Course objectives

By the end of this course, students will:

• be able to apply evolutionary thinking to a complex neuro-behavioral trait, such as music;
• have an up to date knowledge of all recent empirical literature on the topic of music evolution;
• be able to design a ‘mock experiment’ to empirically test hypotheses on the evolution of music.

Course program

• The basics: Natural, sexual and group selection
• Many fields, one question: Evolutionary hypotheses of music origins across disciplines
• Evolutionary psychology vs. cultural evolution: Evolution of music or musicality?
• Music in the brain: The human neuroscience of music
• Twin systems or unrelated abilities?: What language and speech have to say about music evolution
• Bones and stones: The archeology of music
• Music in our genes: The genetics of musicality
• Bioacoustics and ethology: Understanding animal sounds, dance, and other behaviors relevant to music
• It takes two to rock: Animal chorusing and turn-taking
• Comparative cognition: Training musical behaviors in animals
• Probing evolutionary hypotheses without a time machine: Agent-based modeling of (proto)musical behaviors

Additional activities

The course will include hands-on sessions, requiring a laptop/desktop computer for each student with Praat and Python installed. Activities will include: agent based modeling of music-like behaviors in non-human animals (e.g. chorusing) and empirically testing hypotheses on actual bioacoustics data.

Exam

Due  to the online version of the course, there will not be a final exam but many small exams at the end of each lesson.

Main references

1. Honing, H. (2017) The Origins of Musicality. MIT Press Cambridge, MA
2. Honing, H., ten Cate, C., Peretz, I., & Trehub, S. E. (2015). Without it no music: cognition, biology and evolution of musicality. Phil Trans B
3. Honing, H. (2019). The evolving animal orchestra: In search of what makes us musical. MIT Press.

Note: Reference (1) is recommended. Reference (2) and all articles in that special issue mostly overlap with (1). The students should feel free to choose between (1) and (2). Reference (3) is a popular science book, providing an introductory, complementary perspective to (1) or (2).

Other references

This is not an exhaustive list. More references will be provided during the course.

• Cross, I. (2001). Music, cognition, culture, and evolution. Annals of the New York Academy of sciences, 930(1), 28-42.
• Fitch, W. T. (2006). The biology and evolution of music: A comparative perspective. Cognition, 100(1), 173-215.
• Hauser, M. D., & McDermott, J. (2003). The evolution of the music faculty: A comparative perspective. Nature neuroscience, 6(7), 663.
• Jacoby, N., & McDermott, J. H. (2017). Integer ratio priors on musical rhythm revealed cross-culturally by iterated reproduction. Current Biology, 27(3), 359-370.
• Jacoby, N., et al. (2019). Universal and non-universal features of musical pitch perception revealed by singing. Current Biology.
• Kirschner, S., & Tomasello, M. (2010). Joint music making promotes prosocial behavior in 4-year-old children. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(5), 354-364.
• Ma, W., Fiveash, A., & Thompson, W. F. (2019). Spontaneous emergence of language-like and music-like vocalizations from an artificial protolanguage. Semiotica, 2019(229), 1-23.
• MacCallum, R. M., Mauch, M., Burt, A., & Leroi, A. M. (2012). Evolution of music by public choice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(30), 12081-12086.
• Merker, B. (1999). Synchronous chorusing and the origins of music. Musicae Scientiae, 3(1_suppl), 59-73.
• Miranda, E. R., Kirby, S., & Todd, P. (2003). On computational models of the evolution of music: From the origins of musical taste to the emergence of grammars. Contemporary Music Review, 22(3), 91-111.
• Mithen, S. (2011). The Singing Neanderthals: the origins of music, language, mind and body. Hachette UK.
• Morley, I. (2013). The prehistory of music: human evolution, archaeology, and the origins of musicality. Oxford University Press.
• Patel, A. D. (2006). Musical rhythm, linguistic rhythm, and human evolution. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 24(1), 99-104.
• Patel, A. D., Iversen, J. R., Bregman, M. R., & Schulz, I. (2009). Experimental evidence for synchronization to a musical beat in a nonhuman animal. Current biology, 19(10), 827-830.
• Patel, A. D. (2010). Music, language, and the brain. Oxford university press.
• Ravignani, A., Bowling, D. L., & Fitch, W. (2014). Chorusing, synchrony, and the evolutionary functions of rhythm. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1118.
• Ravignani, A., Delgado, T., & Kirby, S. (2017). Musical evolution in the lab exhibits rhythmic universals. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(1), 0007.
• Ravignani, A., et al. (2016). What pinnipeds have to say about human speech, music, and the evolution of rhythm. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 10, 274.
• Savage, P. E., Brown, S., Sakai, E., & Currie, T. E. (2015). Statistical universals reveal the structures and functions of human music. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(29), 8987-8992.
• Wallin, N. L., Merker, B., & Brown, S. (Eds.). (2001). The origins of music. MIT press.
• Wilson, M., & Cook, P. F. (2016). Rhythmic entrainment: why humans want to, fireflies can’t help it, pet birds try, and sea lions have to be bribed. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 23(6), 1647-1659.

MODULO 2

Course title

The evolution of rhythm

Module 2 of ‘The origin and evolution of music’

Lecturer

Andrea Ravignani (andrea.ravignani@gmail.com)

Course overview

Why do humans have music? From a biological, evolutionary perspective, music is a bit of a mystery. Music making, listening, and enjoyment are extremely common in our species. However, compared to other behaviors or neurobiological predispositions, such as speaking or seeing colors, music does not seem to provide an obvious evolutionary advantage. After centuries of pure theoretical speculation, we have reached an empirical turn: hypothesis on why humans have music are being precisely formulated and empirically tested. The aim of the first Module was to introduce students to the highly interdisciplinary field of music origin and evolution.

The aim of this second Module is to zoom in on rhythm, across species and domains. The course will develop over 3 months, and consist of 11 lectures of 2 hours each. Students will learn about empirical approaches to music evolution spanning the following disciplines: animal behavior, bioacoustics, genetics, neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience, comparative psychology, developmental psychology, music perception, human movement sciences, agent based modeling, linguistics, and speech sciences. Emphasis will be placed on rhythm from a biological perspective. The course will be mostly theoretical but will also include practical, hands-on sessions.

Course prerequisites

This course is mostly aimed at students of biology, behavior, ethology, etc. Students attending Module 2 should attend/have attended Module 1.

Language

The course will be taught in English.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, students will:

• be able to apply evolutionary thinking to a complex neuro-behavioral trait, such as musical rhythm;
• have an up to date knowledge of all recent empirical literature on the topic of the evolution of rhythm;
• be able to design a ‘mock experiment’ to empirically test hypotheses on the evolution of musical rhythm.

Course program

• Evolutionary hypotheses for rhythm origins across domains, species and disciplines
• Evolution of rhythm between biology and culture
• The human neuroscience of musical rhythm
• What language and speech have to say about the evolution of rhythm
• The genetics of musical rhythm
• Animal timing and other behaviors relevant to rhythm
• Introduction/refresher to Praat
• Extracting temporal and rhythmic information from animal vocalizations
• Quantitative techniques to measure temporal and rhythmic structure
• Quantitative techniques to measure synchrony and other forms of temporal coordination
• The evolution of dance across human cultures and animal species
• Animal chorusing and turn-taking
• Training and testing synchronization, beat perception and other behaviors in animals
• The vocal learning - beat perception and synchronization hypothesis
• Agent-based modeling of (proto)musical rhythmic behaviors

Additional activities

The course will include hands-on sessions, requiring a laptop/desktop computer for each student with Praat and Python installed. Activities will include: agent based modeling of music-like behaviors in non-human animals (e.g. chorusing) and empirically testing hypotheses on actual bioacoustics data.

 Exam

The exam will be a multiple choice (written) test in English.

Main references

1. Honing, H. (2017) The Origins of Musicality. MIT Press Cambridge, MA
2. Honing, H., ten Cate, C., Peretz, I., & Trehub, S. E. (2015). Without it no music: cognition, biology and evolution of musicality. Phil Trans B
3. Honing, H. (2019). The evolving animal orchestra: In search of what makes us musical. MIT Press.
4. Ravignani, A., Honing, H., & Kotz, S. A. (2017). The evolution of rhythm cognition: Timing in music and speech. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 11, 303.

Note: Reference (1) is recommended. Reference (2) and all articles in that special issue mostly overlap with (1). The students should feel free to choose between (1) and (2). Reference (3) is a popular science book, providing an introductory, complementary perspective to (1) or (2). Reference (4) is the editorial of a special issue, containing many articles on rhythm in animal behavior and human speech/music/movement.

Other references

This is not an exhaustive list. More references will be provided during the course.

• Cross, I. (2001). Music, cognition, culture, and evolution. Annals of the New York Academy of sciences, 930(1), 28-42.
• Fitch, W. T. (2006). The biology and evolution of music: A comparative perspective. Cognition, 100(1), 173-215.
• Hauser, M. D., & McDermott, J. (2003). The evolution of the music faculty: A comparative perspective. Nature neuroscience, 6(7), 663.
• Jacoby, N., & McDermott, J. H. (2017). Integer ratio priors on musical rhythm revealed cross-culturally by iterated reproduction. Current Biology, 27(3), 359-370.
• Jacoby, N., et al. (2019). Universal and non-universal features of musical pitch perception revealed by singing. Current Biology.
• Kirschner, S., & Tomasello, M. (2010). Joint music making promotes prosocial behavior in 4-year-old children. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(5), 354-364.
• Ma, W., Fiveash, A., & Thompson, W. F. (2019). Spontaneous emergence of language-like and music-like vocalizations from an artificial protolanguage. Semiotica, 2019(229), 1-23.
• MacCallum, R. M., Mauch, M., Burt, A., & Leroi, A. M. (2012). Evolution of music by public choice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(30), 12081-12086.
• Merker, B. (1999). Synchronous chorusing and the origins of music. Musicae Scientiae, 3(1_suppl), 59-73.
• Miranda, E. R., Kirby, S., & Todd, P. (2003). On computational models of the evolution of music: From the origins of musical taste to the emergence of grammars. Contemporary Music Review, 22(3), 91-111.
• Mithen, S. (2011). The Singing Neanderthals: the origins of music, language, mind and body. Hachette UK.
• Morley, I. (2013). The prehistory of music: human evolution, archaeology, and the origins of musicality. Oxford University Press.
• Patel, A. D. (2006). Musical rhythm, linguistic rhythm, and human evolution. Music Perception, 24(1), 99-104.
• Patel, A. D., Iversen, J. R., Bregman, M. R., & Schulz, I. (2009). Experimental evidence for synchronization to a musical beat in a nonhuman animal. Current biology, 19(10), 827-830.
• Patel, A. D. (2010). Music, language, and the brain. Oxford university press.
• Ravignani, A., Bowling, D. L., & Fitch, W. (2014). Chorusing, synchrony, and the evolutionary functions of rhythm. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1118.
• Ravignani, A., Delgado, T., & Kirby, S. (2017). Musical evolution in the lab exhibits rhythmic universals. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(1), 0007.
• Ravignani, A., et al. (2016). What pinnipeds have to say about human speech, music, and the evolution of rhythm. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 10, 274.
• Savage, P. E., Brown, S., Sakai, E., & Currie, T. E. (2015). Statistical universals reveal the structures and functions of human music. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(29), 8987-8992.
• Wallin, N. L., Merker, B., & Brown, S. (Eds.). (2001). The origins of music. MIT press.
• Wilson, M., & Cook, P. F. (2016). Rhythmic entrainment: why humans want to, fireflies can’t help it, pet birds try, and sea lions have to be bribed. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 23(6), 1647-1659.

Note

Il corso comprende 2 moduli:

Modulo 1 (20 ore) destinato agli studenti SSST con valutazione e aperto anche a studenti del Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e Biologia dei Sistemi (DIPBIOS)

Modulo 2 (22 ore) destinato agli studenti del Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e Biologia dei Sistemi (DIPBIOS) con valutazione e aperto anche a studenti SSST

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