Music of the Hemispheres: NY Times Article

[Mr. Tunes]

last time i posted a link to a NY Times article it was of christina aguelera pretending to mix at a console that wasn't even on. I hope this thread goes over better

so I was reading this article on the frontpage of the Arts section today and I thought there were some interesting things discussed in here. but at the end of it all i feel that it sort of takes us back to where it started - "music is a difficult thing to understand" sort of mentality. i guess the most important thing i took from the article is that it's simply a feature on a really interesting character more than it is about unravelling century old mysteries. I wonder how others can weigh in on this? talk amongst yourselves

[funkychickendance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/arts/ ... 1thom.html

[Reverend Rhythm]

Interesting.

[Barf]

Very interesting, thanx a lot!

[runagate]

Well, that makes up for the last debacle.
Cool article, I don't know how I missed that one.
Thanks.

[Reverse Engineer]

It was good up til there...

Not all of Dr. Levitin's idea have been easily accepted. He argues, for example, that music is an evolutionary adaptation: something that men developed as a way to demonstrate reproductive fitness. (Before you laugh, consider the sex lives of today's male rock stars.) Music also helped social groups cohere. "Music has got to be useful for survival, or we would have gotten rid of it years ago," he said.

now that's just talking shite.

[Mr. Tunes]

It was good up til there...

Not all of Dr. Levitin's idea have been easily accepted. He argues, for example, that music is an evolutionary adaptation: something that men developed as a way to demonstrate reproductive fitness. (Before you laugh, consider the sex lives of today's male rock stars.) Music also helped social groups cohere. "Music has got to be useful for survival, or we would have gotten rid of it years ago," he said.

now that's just talking shite.

well if you think about it: look at the gender makeup of kvr itself. look in all the production magazines - it's all men being featured with the exception of a few females like imogen heap or ellen allien or cibo matu that are actually on the boards. i've always equated production with a sort of macho hobby similar to working on cars and lusting after the latest engine specs.

[Chuck E. Jesus]

It was good up til there...

Not all of Dr. Levitin's idea have been easily accepted. He argues, for example, that music is an evolutionary adaptation: something that men developed as a way to demonstrate reproductive fitness. (Before you laugh, consider the sex lives of today's male rock stars.) Music also helped social groups cohere. "Music has got to be useful for survival, or we would have gotten rid of it years ago," he said.

now that's just talking shite.

obviously you've never heard "do you think i'm sexy"...

now that i think of it, hasn't Rod the Mod got Scottish blood?

[Barf]

It was good up til there...

Not all of Dr. Levitin's idea have been easily accepted. He argues, for example, that music is an evolutionary adaptation: something that men developed as a way to demonstrate reproductive fitness. (Before you laugh, consider the sex lives of today's male rock stars.) Music also helped social groups cohere. "Music has got to be useful for survival, or we would have gotten rid of it years ago," he said.

now that's just talking shite.

I agree with the "Music has got to be useful for survival, or we would have gotten rid of it years ago" part but I also have my doubts about how much it is 'to demonstrate reproductive fitness'

[laputa_sync]

"i play music to the animals in the forest and they give me food in return, i had to develop this survival skill to survive... but Dr Levitan has a good premise, but he is a fool, and i regard him an enemy" - laputa_sync, 2006.

[funkychickendance]

It was good up til there...

Not all of Dr. Levitin's idea have been easily accepted. He argues, for example, that music is an evolutionary adaptation: something that men developed as a way to demonstrate reproductive fitness. (Before you laugh, consider the sex lives of today's male rock stars.) Music also helped social groups cohere. "Music has got to be useful for survival, or we would have gotten rid of it years ago," he said.

now that's just talking shite.

George Michael? Michael Jackson?

If you defined 'music' as just singing, maybe. It's a bit hard to see how playing the tuba, for example, would boost one's reproductive fitness, or symbolize anything other than a big brassy fart.

Interesting article, certainly. As long as you don't buy every premise.

/funxi

[mayan]

Interesting article...thanks!

[kentrel]

now that's just talking shite.

Read some of Prof. Richard Dawkin's books, especially The Selfish Gene - he argues that all significant human qualities exist because of how useful they are for survival, and provides a lot of evidence to back it up.

Other researchers have pointed out the connection too, such as Steven Mithen. He argues that music throughout history required people to convene in groups (this is before the personal walkman!) and any activity that encouraged humans to interact socially was beneficial to our survival. For example, if there were humans that didn't inherit genes that controlled proper "rythym" for example they would less likely to feel the bursts of dopamine that the brain delivers as a reward for listening to music, therefore they were less likely to want to convene in groups, less likely to meet other humans, less likely to reproduce, or if they did reproduce they would be less likely to interact socially and gain the survival benefits that being part of a group provides, and over thousands of years that genetic trait\flaw would be weeded out.

I think the "rock star" bit was just the usual piece of nonsense that journalists make up in order to make science interesting to the lay person. Most journalists who report on science are completely ignorant on the subject, and their readers even more so. The actual process of evolution wouldn't be so black & white, but very slow and gradual where the genes that aid survival propegate slowly but increasingly become the more dominant traits in human society.

- Kentrel

[Mr. Tunes]

interesting kentrel. your post makes me think of rave culture with all its tribal and primative attributes

[Barf]

Interesting article...thanks!

Btw nice tracks you got there on Soundclick!