Music and the Mind: Born to Jam or Learned to?

Music is a result of human biology. It is believed to have developed around the same time as language by anthropologists and musicologists alike. However, did humans evolve to create and enjoy music or is it solely cultural? Only recently has this been a point of controversy in the scientific community.

Between 0.52% and 4% (one source claims 1.5%) based on the last two sources and extra data) of people are affected by congenital amusia, or tone deafness experienced from birth. Around the same amount of music students exhibit the opposite, perfect or absolute pitch.

To name pitches we use western music theory, a system we use to understand music as well as a tool to compose it. But what even is music?

Music is vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony. While definition encapsulates what music is at its very simplest, it is not very specific. Melody and harmony do not mean much to the average music listener. To define a couple of terms: Melody is the leading voice of a piece that often has repeating themes, and harmony is the combination of notes played simultaneously to create chords. To communicate all this, usually there is sheet music (A.K.A.: a score, or chart) that composers use to communicate certain things to performers.

Music theory was developed to lay rules and give guidelines to music, but most importantly, to communicate music to performers. A little known fact to non-musicians is that there are dialects and separate standards for different kinds of music. For example, jazz music often has notation indicating what chord is being played each bar, or whenever there is a new chord. Classical does not do this unless it is written for a guitar or a piece meant to be improvised over. A more extreme example is that between western and eastern music. Indian music uses scales that do not exist in western music called raga (RAH-guh). While it does center around a set of pitches, each pitch in the scale is preceded by a set of notes before a singer lands on the desired pitch.

Music, like language, has dialects that would be unplayable to some who have grown to know one and not the other. You could even compare genres to accents. These parallels are no surprise, given that music and language comprehension develop alongside each other in childhood, and in the history of our evolution. An article by Nobuo Masataka suggests that a precursor to music was actually a version of a language, akin to a birdsong, as we had “vocal flexibility of other animals such as songbirds“.

Music comprehension is a byproduct of language comprehension.

Our ability to understand music is directly correlated with language, something humans evolved to have an affinity for, and the reason for civilization. Therefore predating society and furthermore, culture. Its reason for existence can not be something that was created after it.

Music can be used to communicate and there are entire systems created to communicate it, however it can exist without communicating at all. This is another distinction between a biological reason for music’s existence, rather than cultural: it can exist without culture. There is a group of people who can not appreciate music though, and it is not their fault.

Tone deafness affects only a small percent of the population. Simply put, it is the inability to match pitch. People affected by tone deafness can tell if a pitch is higher or lower, but can not match it themselves when using their voice or an instrument. They also have no problem with rhythm, as rhythm is a pattern in time, something our brain is always looking for – for a multitude of reasons beyond music.

A study done by Isabelle Peretz, Stèphanie Cummings and Marie-Pierre Dubè found that congenital amusia has a hereditary component. However “congenital” only accounts for those affected at birth. Like speech impediments, amusia can affect an adult who has experienced brain damage. The case on the other end of the spectrum is perfect pitch.

Perfect pitch is the ability to identify a pitch without having heard a reference note before it. Relative pitch is able to distinguish the intervals between notes, often exhibited by musicians through training. Although, it is about as rare to not be able to recognize pitch at all as it is to be able to have a perfect affinity for recognizing pitch as a music student (4%). Perfect pitch uses music theory to identify these pitches, and though music theory is a cultural phenomenon, identification using the system is like identifying an object using a word.

Peretz and her team discovered that their data allowed for “the mapping of genetic loci for congenital amusia”. This means that there is a chance that if someone was born without the ability to enjoy music, their next of kin may exhibit the same behaviors.

Chromesthesia, a form of perfect pitch in which colors are associated with pitch, and a form of synthesia, a perceptive disorder that causes the subject receiving sensory or cognitive stimuli to involuntarily experience another sensory or cognitive path as well. Synthesia is also hereditary.

The linguistic similarities, developmental habits and hereditary nature of music’s relationship with the mind show clearly that music can not only exist without the influence of culture, but predates it. While it can be argued that its practice today and by this generation categorized music as merely a piece of culture that captures events and trends in our time, the deep roots it has in our minds are there from birth.

We Jam, Therefore We Are

Our strong suit as humans is the ability to speak. We evolved to be so good at it that we can now do it with people on the other side of the planet as well as people who are not on the planet. As a byproduct, we developed a new art: music. We have practiced it for 35,000 years and have created an incredibly valuable industry around it. In 2020, the music industry generated $59.48 billion. Clearly, us humans find a lot of value in music. Most of us, actually.

Four percent of the world does not like music due to congenital amusia, or tone deafness from birth. In 2007, Isabelle Peretz, Stèphanie Cummings and Marie-Pierre Dubè researched the relationship between hereditary (able to be passed down by parents) speech impediments and congenital amusia. They found that congenital amusia is hereditary, coded in our DNA. Not only can you be predisposed to have no tone recognition ability, but you can be born with the ability to recognize tones perfectly.

Some people with absolute pitch, the ability to recognize a note when played, experience it in a way that is ineffable. They can not describe how they recognize the note, they just do. For people with tone-color synthesia, or chromesthesia, it is a different case. Synthesia is perceptive disorder that causes the subject receiving sensory or cognitive stimuli to involuntarily experience another sensory or cognitive path as well. There is also congenital synthesia, congenital meaning the condition is with the patient from birth. Congenital synthesia is also hereditary.

Disorders relating to pitch are not just developed in childhood, induced through chemical agents, or a product of brain damage (all causes of both amusia and chromesthesia), but could also be caused by a variation in genetic code. Pitch recognition is embedded in our genetic coding as a byproduct of early language. Language is what allowed homo sapiens to form communities, and soon enough we dominated the planet. To this day, our ability to comprehend music has survived because the humans that developed language survived.

Aside from the evolutionary and hereditary aspects of music, something all of us can experience is our emotional and cognitive reaction to music.

Music can alleviate choking. To “choke” in reference to sports and other competitions, is to fail due to the pressure of the situation; to crack under pressure. Researchers at Victoria University discovered that playing music during stressful situations lowered the subject’s self-awareness, allowing them to perform better. To prove their hypothesis they used the game of basketball. They had two type of scenarios: low pressure and high pressure. It was discovered that when music was played during the high pressure scenarios decreased self-awareness, and enabled participants to minimize explicit monitoring of execution and reduce general distractibility”. It allowed them to think clearly during a stressful situation. (Mesagno, Merchant, Morris, 2009).

Music therapy is the clinical use of music to accomplish goals one would in regular therapy. It involves creating, performing and listening to music. Music therapy has shown to lower blood pressure, improve memory, enhance social skills and even reduce muscle tension. There are a bunch of types of music therapy but they all prove effective in some way shape or form.

Based on the information gathered from the “choking” study and the influence music can have when paired with the practice of therapy, it is apparent that music can be used as a tool for alleviating mental ailments. Not only do we simply enjoy it, but can gain from it. The response from the body and mind to music displays the ability for humans to comprehend it is on a deeper than lyrical level.

Each example of the human brain’s relationship to pitch, not even mentioning rhythm, is proof that we have an innate ability to process musical concepts and that music is not just a cultural phenomenon, but hardwired into humans by default.

Call And Response

The human brain is wired to understand music. Some would think that the practice of music is solely a cultural phenomenon and one of the many things we do that biological affinity is not a prerequisite for. However, this is simply not true.

A common misconception about music is that it is shaped by culture. Yes, music can be influenced by culture, however music can have an effect on culture without having to be influenced by it. For example, music aided the civil rights movement by giving minorities a voice in media, all the way up until current day.

At first, folk, then jazz, R&B, Motown, and currently, Rap/Hip-hop. Using these genres as a means of expressing their point of view and exposing the condition of places like the Bronx in the 70’s to the public eye was crucial to their cause. A prime example of this is The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Songs like The Message showed anyone outside of New York City what it was like to live in ghettos dominated by landlords that did not hesitate to burn their homes down for insurance money.

Music permeates culture like a virus. Culture is just the host. However, unlike a virus, it can exist without a culture.

It can be argued that music is an entirely learned practice; that it exists because we created it eons ago and decided to continue its practice. This is true to a degree. Similar to the way we have a model for the English language based on grammar and syntax, we have a model for music based on harmony and rhythm. You could say that music is simply academia in practice, like a demonstration of these qualities music can have. This is also true, however there’s a reason for the academia’s existence in the first place. For the study of language, it is that we speak it and use it to communicate important information. For music, it is that we exist with certain biological properties, such as the ability to interpret pitch.

The human brain is wired to interpret pitch. The only auditory functions that are necessary for our survival are the ability to interpret tone or voice – the shape of a soundwave – the ability to determine where a sound comes from in space, and the ability to determine if a pitch is higher or lower. Tone deaf people can understand if a pitch is higher than another or lower. Being able to identify the intervals between pitches is not necessary for our survival, but something most people do if they have ever hummed a song. Along the same vein, long term pitch memory is also not necessary for our survival, however we can recall our favorite songs. We could live without the ability to replicate the exact pitch that was heard. Four percent of the population, people affected by tone deafness, live fine without it. Yet, here we are, with the ability to recognize pitch.

Another argument is to put the question of “If we can identify pitch, is music biological as opposed to cultural?” point of view in a different context.

“If we can taste, is food biological as opposed to cultural?”

The answer is yes, it is common sense. That is the reason the statement is not as impactful in the context of music. We are taught about our digestive system and our senses at a young age. Music is taught to children, however the anatomical and psychological concepts are not, simply because they are too complex and irrelevant to what a child needs to know growing up.

Food is half the reason for having a tongue, it is a reason for having a nose, it is the reason we avoid bad tasting things and are attracted to good ones. Having this complex system to comprehend taste does not mean our bodies are meant to taste rocks. We think food. It’s the same with pitch recognition, only a portion of our hearing sense. The sound of rocks is a topic that will not often show up in a conversation about music, same as rocks to the conversation of food, even though you can taste a rock and hear a rock moving against something else.

We can use our senses to perceive anything, but there’s a specific reason for having each sense in the first place. For hearing, it is to be aware of things that create sound, and within that, pitch recognition is to listen to and/or create music. For taste, it is to gauge the benefit or danger of whatever we intend to ingest, the ability to taste, say sweet things, is to gather carbohydrates. Each type of flavor exists to quench a nutritional craving or warn us. Consider pitch to be a flavor of sound.

It is possible that humans found social/cultural value in music, same as language. If that is the case, it is no wonder the two functions evolved alongside each other. Music and language comprehension more closely related than one would think. In asking the question of whether tone deafness is hereditary or not, a study found that using genetic speech impediments was the quickest route to discovering the answer.

No matter which way you slice it, music is embedded in us.

“If we can taste, is food biological as opposed to cultural?”

Yes. In fact, it is common sense. That is the reason the statement is not as impactful in the context of music. We are taught about our digestive system and our senses at a young age. Music is taught to children, however the anatomical and psychological concepts are not, simply because they are too complex and irrelevant to what a child needs to know growing up.

Food is half the reason for having a tongue, it is a reason for having a nose, it is the reason we avoid bad tasting things and are attracted to good ones. Having this complex system to comprehend taste does not mean our bodies are meant to taste rocks. We think food. It’s the same with pitch recognition, only a portion of our hearing sense. The sound of rocks is a topic that will not often show up in a conversation about music, same as rocks to the conversation of food, even though you can taste a rock and hear a rock moving against something else.

We can use our senses to perceive anything, but there’s a specific reason for having each sense in the first place. For hearing, it is to be aware of things that create sound, and within that, pitch recognition is to listen to or create music. For taste, it is to gage the benefit or danger of whatever we intend to ingest, the ability to taste, say sweet things, is to gather carbohydrates. Each type of flavor exists to quench a nutritional craving or warn us. Consider pitch to be a flavor of sound.

It is possible that humans found social/cultural value in music, same as language. If that is the case, it is no wonder the two functions evolved alongside each other. Music and language comprehension more closely related than one would think. In asking the question of whether tone deafness is hereditary or not, a study found that using genetic speech impediments was the quickest route to discovering the answer.

No matter which way you slice it, music is embedded in us.

References

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Doolittle, Emily, and Bruno Gingras. “Zoomusicology: Current Biology – Cell.com.” The Cell, Current Biology, 5 Oct. 2015.

Tilot, Amanda K., et al. “Investigating Genetic Links between Grapheme–Colour Synaesthesia and Neuropsychiatric Traits.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, The Royal Society Publishing, 21 Oct. 2019.

Art & Music. The Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program. (2022, September 19). Retrieved December 4, 2022.

The Hidden Sense: On Becoming Aware of Synthesia. (2009, January). Retrieved December 4, 2022.

Music Therapy: What Is It, Types & Treatment. (n.d.). Cleveland Clinic.

Masataka, N. (2007). Music, evolution and language. Developmental Science, 10(1), 35–39.

Szyfter, K., & Wigowska-Sowińska, J. (2021, September 21). Congenital amusia-pathology of musical disorder – Journal of Applied Genetics. SpringerLink. Retrieved December 20, 2022.

Pradilla, I., Tierradentro-Garcíab, L. O., Palacios-Arizac, M. A., Díaz-Forerob, A. F., Botero-Menesesa, J. S., & Talero-Gutiérreza, C. (2020, June 25). Congenital amusia and academic performance among Colombian University students. Trends in Neuroscience and Education. Retrieved December 20, 2022.