Richard Parncutt

How and why did our ancestors begin making music? Recent research has generated a mixture of speculative theories and fundamental questions of definition and function. What behaviours, experiences, structures make up “music”? How does music differ from language? Why do all cultures have music? What are music’s biological, psychological, and social functions?

Darwin supposed that music plays a role in the selection of sexual partners. The debate about music and evolution has not abated. Does music train individual, survival-promoting cognitive and motor skills? Are musically inclined social groups more cooperative and so more “fit”?

Or is music a mere byproduct of other adaptations, such as the drive to vocalise, communicate, imitate or play? Or could it be a byproduct of the human fetus’s ability to perceive patterns of sound and movement and to associate them with maternal emotional states in the third trimester?