Monday, December 10, 2007 | Reason : In the News | print version

In the Beginning was the Song

BBC Radio 3

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/sundayfeature/pip/4ue8v/

Ivan Hewett explores the origins and evolution of music.

The urge to make music is rooted deep in human nature. But why that urge arose in the first place is a hotly debated question, which divides the scientific community. Is music a useless by-product of evolution, as renowned cognitive scientist Steven Pinker says? Or is it a vitally important faculty that helped humanity to flourish, as archeologist Steven Mithen and many others believe?

Ivan Hewett goes in search of the answer, drawing on a fascinating body of evidence that ranges from Paleolithic cave settlements and observations of apes making music, to laboratory studies of infants' musical abilities, and a new brain-scanning experiment to map the neural basis of the music faculty.

Program starts around the 6 minute mark

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1. Comment #96387 by CJ22 on December 10, 2007 at 1:13 pm

Well there's a happy coincidence. I've been discussing precisely this topic on another forum. Now I have some ammo :) Cheers Admin!

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2. Comment #96635 by bluebird on December 10, 2007 at 7:26 pm

I was recently hoping the subject of music would be integrated somehow. This article and the BBC website look very interesting.

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3. Comment #96890 by notsobad on December 11, 2007 at 4:03 am