Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA08720 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 12 Apr 2002 01:20:11 +0100 Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 20:14:06 -0400 Subject: Re: musical grammar Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <3CD25E8D@iit1s21> Message-Id: <33BBDDC8-4DAA-11D6-B1DE-003065B9A95A@harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.481) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thursday, April 11, 2002, at 07:22 , rmey4892 wrote:
> I do want to hear you explain the above passage.
> musical grammar before language?
It's been postulated for among certain apes, certainly, but, our
resident music man is Bill Benzon, who has a book called, I think,
Beethoven's Anvil.
> why do we have a 12 tone scale.?
Well, we do, most definitively after Schoenberg, but I don't think
twelve-tones are quite as universal as all that. Tonics and harmonics
are more important, with five and seven tone systems.
The earliest 'fossil' evidence we have of actual musical production,
AFAIK, is from about 50K years ago, from the discovery of reed flutes.
But, from courtship and defensive aural behaviors of primates, who do
not have language, we may be certain the production of regulated noise,
and, most importantly, rhythmic noise, was a (cultural?) behavior of the
earliest hominids.
But, let's hope Bill chirps in on this for you.
- Wade
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