created 2025-04-04, & modified, =this.modified
rel: Dubstep Conveyed Conversation
Musical behavior is the product of a multicomponent collection of abilities, some possibly evolved for music but most derived from traits serving nonmusical function.
We describe the cultural evolution of musical distortion, a noisy manipulation of instrumental and vocal timbre that emulates nonlinear phenomena (NLP) present in the vocal signals of many animals. We suggest that listeners’ sensitivity to NLP has facilitated technological developments for altering musical instruments and singing with distortion, which continues to evolve culturally via the need for groups to both coordinate internally and differentiate themselves from other groups.
Evolutionary theories of music lack explanation regarding the immense sonic variation we observe. Evolutionary accounts propose these solutions
- parent-offspring communication
- social bonding
- predatory deterrence
- sexual signaling but none explain in detail how and why you get the variants from a drum circle to a Bach chorale in the times and places they appear.
Authors define music as a varied category of sound-based, intentionally produced performance activity, typically embedded within a cultural milieu.
In many language there is no word that maps directly to the [[Flamenco Thoughts Scattered|word music.]]. Instead the closest concept often refer to a cultural activity that includes phenomena some might describe separately as music.
This fact reveals not only that the practice varies substantially across cultures and time, but that its conception does as well. In the West, we have decomposed music to its smallest constituents—for scholarly reasons of analysis and teaching, and production reasons related to music creation, performance and perception. Through technology, we have developed techniques for fine control over every parameter we can imagine.
Many specialized abilities important for music production and perception evolved for nonmusical reasons, most being older than humankind and even hominoids. For instance, mechanisms supporting auditory scene analysis allowing for sound stream segregation and localization are highly relevant for how we perceive music but exist in highly conserved forms across many terrestrial animals.
Also, Signaling and affective intent, and emotional vocal performances and the emulation of emotion in voices.
While songbirds and whale express cultural variation in particular melodic features, humans do to an extreme degree: from soft and slow, to loud and fast, from highly rhythmic melodies to drones, from dulcet to distorted. What is the source of this variation?
Distortion can be technically defined as the progressive transition of a sound wave (for an electric guitar, a triangle wave) perceived as relatively ‘clean’, into a square wave as a function of amplitude gain. rel:Sound Waves
Cultural evolution is possible because human psychology permits traits to be transmitted by a second channel alongside genetic transmission: social learning. Preferentially, learning from successful or high-prestige individuals is often an effective way to maintain useful skills in a population, though diversity can limit the adaptive value of that information if it originates from someone in dramatically different circumstances than one’s own. In this case, signals of group identity can direct one’s attention toward information sources likely to be most useful, particularly when identity information is coupled with information about success or prestige.
Cultural evolution of music distortion contributes three factors to transmission of behavior
- the need to capture the attention and aesthetic appeal of an evolved human psychology.
- for example, fast rhythms coupled with distortion are particular effective at inducing intense emotional responses and physical movements (slam dancing) while lullabies should not have those properties (given that they function to children.)
- the need to coordinate with others.
- music provides benefit for interactivity, coalition building and signaling.
- the need to strengthen group boundaries by differentiating the norms of one’s group with the norms of another.
- In this context, distortion may particularly benefit from its abrasive sonic characteristics—individuals who are not enculturated in a group’s music containing distortion may have a difficult time benefitting from participation.
Language and speech systems likely underlie many aspects of musical tradition such as hierarchy of rhythms, as well as obvious systems like singing and written music notation.
Abundant evidence suggests voice perception mechanisms give rise to musical scales, major and minor modes consonance and dissonance and musical intervals
Being able to control the voice both individually and in coordinated ways with others could be the most important factor in how musical evolution got off the ground, affording group-level activity.