There’s a good chance that you’re listening to music while reading this, and if you happen not to be, my bet is that you listen to music in the car, or at home, or while jogging. In all likelihood, you love music – simply love it.
Why? What is it about those auditory patterns counting as “music” that makes us relish it so?
I have my own opinion about the answer, the topic of my recently finished book that will appear next year, Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man. I’ll give you a hint as to my view at the end of this piece, but what I’d like to do in this piece is to put forth four hurdles I believe any theory of music must leap over.
Brain: Why do we have a brain for music?
Emotion: Why is music emotionally evocative?
Dance: Why do we dance?
Structure: Why is music structurally organized as it is?
If a theory can answer all four questions, then I believe we should start paying attention.
To help clarify what I mean by these questions, let’s run through them in the context of a particular lay theory of music, namely the “heartbeat” theory of music. Although there is probably not just a single heartbeat theory put forth by lay people, the main motivation appears to be that a heart carries a beat, something fundamental to music. Of course, we don’t typically hear our own heartbeat, much less others, so when it is fleshed out I have heard it suggested that it comes from our in-utero days. One of the constants of the good fetus life was Momma’s heartbeat, and music takes us back to the oceanic, one-with-the-universe feelings we long ago lost. I’m not suggesting this is a good theory, by any means, but it will aid me in illustrating the four hurdles. I would be hesitant, by the way, to call this “lub-dub” theory of music crazy – our understanding of the origins of music is so woeful that any non-spooky theory is worth a look. Let’s see how lub-dubs fare with our four hurdles for a theory of music.
The first hurdle was this: “Why do we have a brain for music?” That is, why are our brains capable of processing music? For example, fax machines are designed to process the auditory modulations occurring in fax machine communication, but to our ears fax machines sound like a fairly continuous screechy-brrr – we don’t have brains capable of processing fax machine sounds. Music may well sound homogeneously screechy-brrrey to non-human ears, but it sounds richly dynamic and structured to our ears. How might the lub-dub theorist answer why we have a brain for music?
Best I can figure, the lub-dubber could say that our in-utero days of warmth and comfort get strongly associated to Momma’s heartbeat, and the musical beat taps into those associations, bringing back warm fetus feelings.
One difficulty for this hypothesis is that learned associations often don’t last forever, so why would those Momma’s-heartbeat associations be so strong among adults? There are lots of beat-like stimuli out of the womb: some are nice, some are not nice. Why wouldn’t those out-of-the-womb sounds become the dominant association, with the Momma’s heartbeat washed away? And if Momma’s lub-dubs are, for some reason, not washed away, then why aren’t there other in-utero experiences that forever stay with us? Why don’t we, say, like to wear artificial umbilical cords, thereby bringing forth recollections of the womb? “Cuddle with your umbilicus just like the old days. You’ll sleep better. Guaranteed!” And why, at any rate, do we think we were so happy in the womb? Maybe those days, supposing they leave any trace at all, are associated with nothing whatsoever. (Or perhaps with horror.) The lub-dub theory of music does not have a plausible story for why we have a brain ready and excited to soak up a beat.
The lub-dub theory of music origins also comes up short on the second major demand on a theory of music – that it explain why music is evocative, or emotional. Heartbeat sounds amount to a one-dimensional parameter – faster or slower rate – and are not sufficiently rich to capture much of the range of human emotion. Accordingly, heartbeats won’t help much in explaining the range of emotions music can elicit in listeners.
Psychophysiologists who look for physiological correlates of emotion take a variety of measurements (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance), not just one. Heart sounds aren’t rich enough to tug at all music’s heart strings.
Heartbeats also fail the “dance” hurdle. The “dance” requirement is that we explain why it is that music should elicit dance. This fundamental fact about music is a strange thing for sounds to do. In fact, it is a strange thing for any stimulus to do, in any modality. For lub-dubs, the difficulty for the dance hurdle is that even if lub-dubs were fondly recalled by us, and even if they managed to elicit a wide range of emotions, we would have no idea why it should provoke post-uterin people to move, given that even fetuses don’t move to Momma’s heartbeat.
The final requirement of a theory of music is that it explain the structure of music, a tall order. Lub-dubs do have a beat, of course, but heartbeats are far too simple to possibly explain the many other structural regularities found in music. For starters, where is the melody?
Sorry, Mom. Thanks for the good times in your uterus, but I’m afraid your heartbeats are not the source of my fascination with music.
To tip my hand on my upcoming book, my view is that music has been culturally selected over time to sound like human movement, something I have also hinted at in the following pieces…
– http://www.scientificblogging.com/mark_changizi/music_sounds_moving_people
– http://changizi.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/scientific-american-piece-why-does-music-make-us-feel/
We have a brain for music because auditory mechanisms for recognizing what people are doing around us are clearly advantageous, and were selected for. Music is evocative because it sounds like human behaviors, many which are expressive in their nature. Music gets us dancing because we social apes are prone to mimic the movements of others. And, finally, the movement theory is sufficiently powerful that it can explain a lot of the structure of music – that requires much of the my book to describe. I admit that my hypothesis sounds implausible, and I ask that you wait to hear the book-length argument for it.
This first appeared on April 6, 2010, as a feature at Science 2.0
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Mark Changizi is a professor of cognitive science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the author of The Vision Revolution (Benbella Books).
one word … india
you will find the deepest theories imaginable …
and smarter
I indeed suspect the West is missing out on lots of music wisdom there that hasn’t trickled into the West yet…
Music changes our mood thus processed by our brain, indeed music is a universal language for all races. http://relaxationpill.com
I have a friend who has a milking business and every time they do the milking they played Mozart and they think it stimulates the brain of the cows and converts higher volume of milk.
Listening to nature music soothes my body and it makes me sleep longer and calmer.
You express your lack of understanding of the theory and quickly conclude:
“The lub-dub theory of music does not have a plausible story for why we have a brain ready and excited to soak up a beat”
without any argument for that conclusion whatsoever! You’ve merely shown that YOU can not make sense of the theory.
The question is why would the umbilical cord have anywhere near as significant an effect on us as the heartbeat. The significance of the heartbeat is more than it’s mere presence; for a start it would have resonated powerful physical vibrations through us, unlike an umbilical cord, which was just, well, there. The heartbeat would’ve been much more apparent. Also, physical manipulation of our muscles relaxes us, from massage to heat (heat/ultrasound therapy) to vibration.
And as a cognitive scientist it should be utterly obvious to you that learned associations depend on when they are formed. The earliest sexual associations are much more powerful than later ones (early associations are believed to be the source of fetishes and orientations necessary for stimulation) for example. And considering the heartbeat is an association present at our very conception, it’s no wonder it resonates so deeply with our soul.
And again, why wouldn’t we be happy? Happiness is standard, unhappiness a motivational tool, an indication that some need is not being met. In the womb, all needs are met- there is no need for unhappiness.
I’ve read on.. this is unbelievable! Why should music ‘capture’ emotions? Relaxation in itself promotes better connection with feelings that are already there, just repressed. You don’t honestly think that when things ‘elicit’ feelings, those feelings are not already there within us do you, that they are somehow created artificially and..what, given to us by the music? We carry with us a wealth of feelings and connections that we are just not aware of because of our state of mind. I can sleep well or have a massage and feel or realise things I wouldn’t have otherwise, because I am more relaxed and empathic. Most things that elicit feeling are ‘one dimensional’ as you put it and unable to ‘capture’ the range of human emotions, the touch of a loved one for example.
Theories have limits. The theory that there is a link between the heartbeat and music is not meant to explain the totality of music. Einsteins theory of relativity does not in itself explain why trees have green leaves. That does not make it wrong.
I’m not in any way dismissing your conclusion or your replacement theory, just your argument and assumptions which quite frankly only add to the overflowing support for the sentiment expressed in the immortal line “Experts, sexperts” by the best of all beat producers, the Beat-les.
But there are lots of stimuli we experience early in life. Having our bottoms wiped, for example, was surely a much more salient positive stimulus than heartbeat sounds (albeit, heartbeats were earlier) — why not hypothesize that we’d all be purchasing bottom-wiping massagers as a form of entertainment / self-soothing? One can make countless such hypotheses, some prenatal, some for infants. One would like some sort of argument for why heartbeats are special in this regard.
And merely having early experiences or stimuli is not enough to ensure powerful associations later. We have evolved to possess learning mechanisms designed for specific kinds of learning, for specific kinds of stimuli. Other sorts of stimuli will typically be ignored, or be very ineffective at leading to learning. Generally, if there is no selective advantage to letting early stimuli severely and permanently affect our brains, then these associations will not be encoded. Now, if some unnatural stimulus occurs for some particular person, it could accidentally end up leading to long-term associations with no benefit. But heartbeat sounds for the fetus are an evolutionary constant, occurring in every generation for hundreds of millions of years. …ample time to have evolved mechanisms for not letting those sounds modulate one’s later brain. Presuming that there’s no good reason to have the later brain affected by heartbeat-like sounds, there’s little reason to see why the brain would be affected in this way by prenatal heartbeat sounds.
On the limits of the heartbeat theory, I take your point that theories have limits. But for the heartbeat theory, setting aside the above skepticism that our brains would be affected by prenatal heartbeat sounds, if the heartbeat theory can only explain why we like the beat, and not explain anything else about music, then I do believe it takes it out of the running as a theory of music. I suppose one could argue that the beat is due to prenatal heartbeats, but that the rest of music taps into something else. That seems inelegant, but even so, we’d then want to know how we might test the heartbeat theory. E.g., would it predict that musical beat sounds better when it has the more specific lub-dub sounds characteristic of a beating heart (as heard by a fetus)?
Very good points. First I would say that we would not distinguish between having our bottoms wiped, or mouths or being bathed etc as they are very similar sensations- being touched. And we do have long lasting associations in our adult life between being touched and relaxation/comfort/safety. So that might explain why we don’t go and buy bottom wiping massagers but do like being caressed.
I think the main point of the heartbeat theory is that the heartbeat is of such significance because it is there at the very very earliest of our lives and also because it is repeatedly sensed and therefore more deeply ingrained- if every time Pavlov rings a bell food appears, the dogs will have the notion of food very deeply associated with the bell. If Pavlov only occasionally throws a ball into the mix, the association between bell and ball is less so with the dogs. In the womb, the heartbeat is the only constant thing that occurs at the same time as the sensation of complete satisfaction. This is unlike other stimuli, such as having our bottom wiped which occurs infrequently (bell and ball) and outside of a sense of complete satisfaction (needs are less well met outside the womb). I hope this gives some argument as to why heartbeats are special in some sense.
I agree that having a liking for music for this reason does not seem to offer any evolutionary advantage which is a valid counter- argument. But then, as you say, heartbeat sounds are an evolutionary constant. I highlight this because the notion of certain traits being weeded out on the grounds of being evolutionarily unnecessary relies on the presence of variation. Liking music doesn’t seem to have any negative consequences in an evolutionary sense as well. The brain IS geared to recognise patterns in reality- it is consistencies in the universe that allow us to manipulate it to our liking. It is this fundamental aspect of the brain (the tendency to develop associations) that inadvertently creates an association between deep vibrational beats and a sense of comfort and satisfaction.
And I think if truth is the sought after article, then elegance should really only be considered a loose indicator of correctness (in that many theories tend to be elegant) but otherwise of little importance. I do agree that the melody needs to be accounted for. My guess would be that the more relaxed one is the more variation in pitch and tone there is in our voice, as the body and vocal muscles are more flexible. The melody may remind us of connection between two people in relaxed times, particularly, the voice of the mother during the early stages of development.