One might suppose that the simplest and most logical alternative explanation for the different types of human morphology, culture and music would be based on the oldest and most extreme version of the multiregional model, where it is assumed that both language and music were independently invented at different times in different parts of the world, among "archaic" humans who can also be seen as "racial" prototypes. Thus one might argue that the distinctive unison/ iterative/ one-beat musical style of Australia could have originated as a completely independent invention among some "Australoid" Homo Erectus group somewhere in South or Southeast Asia; that solo oriented, embellished vocalizing could have originated among a group of "proto-mongoloid" Homo Erectus somewhere in East Asia, leading to the development of Lomax's "elaborate-style"; that the various types of drone polyphony so commonly found among certain indigenous groups in Southeast Asia, Island Southeast Asia and Polynesia could have originated somewhere in that part of the world, among yet another Homo Erectus group; that the strophic song, ballad and epic could have originated independently somewhere in Europe or Central Asia, among some "proto-caucasoid" Neanderthal group; etc.
The wide distribution of P/B style and its variants among so many isolated indigenous groups of varying morphologies could, according to the same model, be seen as the survival of a truly archaic tradition dating back, not tens of thousands but literally hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years, to the origin of "Homo Sapiens" as a distinct species (which, according to the multiregional model, would have included Homo Erectus as a distinct type, but not a separate species), also in Africa, but millions of years ago, which would date P/B to millions of years before the advent of the ancestral group I call HBP.
If I had to choose among the various alternatives presented in the last three posts, purely on the basis of the musical evidence, I would definitely pick this version of multiregionalism, since it does appear to account for much of the diversity we see in the world of today and very neatly "solves" at least some (though certainly not all) of the riddles I've been struggling with. Unfortunately, even the most enthusiastic proponents of multiregionalism have been forced to back away from this, the most extreme version, since 1. it cannot account for all the many similarities we see among all the various human populations; 2. it depends on an unlikely model of biological and cultural convergence that was once very fashionable, but most evolutionists now reject; 3. it is completely inconsistent with the genetic evidence, which reveals no sign of biological convergence, or indeed any type of hybridization between Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals or Homo Erectus.
Newer, more or less compromised, versions of multiculturalism have arisen, based on various attempts to accommodate aspects of the Out of Africa model. The most recent, and most widely accepted (among the relatively small group still promoting the multiregional view), is probably the one offered by Vinayak Eswaran in his essay A Diffusion Wave Out of Africa. Eswaran's highly imaginative, if not fanciful, theory is so complex and so full of tortuous arguments and caveats as to defy my powers of paraphrase and summary, so I hope he'll forgive me if I misrepresent him. In essence, what it amounts to is an "Out of Africa" theory based not on migration but on a "diffusion wave" that would have transmitted genetic materials through a series of localized encounters between adjacent groups spanning all regions of Africa, Asia and Europe over a very long period of time.
He sees anatomically modern humans evolving first in Africa, in accordance with the now prevailing view, but according to his model, their modern genotypes were transmitted via a kind of daisy chain exchange of sexual partners across vast regions of time and space, a process driven by certain physical advantages of the modern anatomy that would, over time, have preserved the "modern" geno and pheno types through natural selection while causing the more archaic anatomy to gradually disappear. Eswaran's theory may or may not make sense, depending on one's tolerance for mathematically driven models, but he has so little to say about the cultural side of his diffusion wave that it's not clear what we are supposed to think regarding the origins and peregrinations of stone tools, hunting methods, language families, or musical styles.
While traditional multiregionalism remains far too problematic and Eswaran's version far too speculative, there are simpler variants that are potentially more convincing. For example, what if there could have been some degree of significant friendly contact between Homo Sapiens and Homo Erectus during the initial Out of Africa trek? The possibility of some degree of interbreeding can't be completely ruled out, but what interests me more is the possibility of cultural "interbreeding." If many "Bantu" groups of today have adopted certain aspects of Pygmy culture, as seems to be the case with music, despite their disdain for the Pygmies as social and intellectual inferiors, then who is to say that a similar dynamic might not have developed between Homo Sapiens and Homo Erectus during early stages of the Out of Africa migration?
I find it difficult, in fact, to completely rule out at least the possibility that some of the cultural transformations I've attributed to a major bottleneck, induced by Toba or some other disaster, could be due to the influence of traditions originating independently among archaic humans, who would certainly have been living in various regions of Asia at that time. If even one "modern" human of African origin managed to mate with a member of a Homo Erectus group, who is to say that such a union couldn't have produced the first "mongoloid" or first "australoid" or first "caucasoid"? And even if such a congress could not have resulted in "viable offspring," as many now suspect, it could have led to the sort of cultural symbiosis that might, under the right circumstances, have encouraged the "modern" humans to adopt some Erectus traditions, including musical traditions.
While I think it unlikely, it is in fact at least possible that a musical tradition such as, say, the unison/ iterative/ one-beat tradition, now so common among both Australians and Amerindians, could have originated among Homo Erectus peoples, to be adopted at some point by some Homo Sapiens group that could have passed it on intact to its descendants. Since such a transaction would have left no genetic trace, I don't see any way of testing such a hypothesis, but neither do I see any way of ruling it out. So at this point I have to admit that there is at least one viable alternative to the hypothesis I've been exploring -- and I find that possibility both intriguing and thought provoking.
"For example, what if there could have been some degree of significant friendly contact between Homo Sapiens and Homo Erectus during the initial Out of Africa trek? The possibility of some degree of interbreeding can't be completely ruled out, but what interests me more is the possibility of cultural "interbreeding." If many "Bantu" groups of today have adopted certain aspects of Pygmy culture, as seems to be the case with music, despite their disdain for the Pygmies as social and intellectual inferiors, then who is to say that a similar dynamic might not have developed between Homo Sapiens and Homo Erectus during early stages of the Out of Africa migration?"
ReplyDeleteYou may want to take a look at "Genetic Analysis of Lice Supports Direct Contact between Modern and Archaic Humans" by Reed et al. http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0020340.
Thanks for the link, German. I'm reading that paper now and it's interesting. It stands to reason that there would have been at least some encounters between Homo Sapiens and Homo Erectus, or Neanderthals -- some of them could have been friendly and in some cases there could have been exchanges: of tools, of women, and of musical practices as well. As I said, such exchanges can't be ruled out.
ReplyDeleteI was considering alternatives so I felt it necessary to consider this possibility. It's important to understand, however, that even if a particular musical style managed to be transmitted from an Erectus group to a Sapiens group the possibility of such influence cannot in itself explain the highly structured patterning of musical distribution worldwide, and especially what we see in Asia, where a truly huge region is almost completely free of vocal polyphony, not only among peoples with a more "advanced" type of society, but a great many indigenous peoples as well. Jordania subscribes to the most extreme form of multiregionalism and he sees essentially the same problem nevertheless -- which led him to come up with the theory I've already discussed.
If you take the musical evidence seriously (which I'm pleased to see you do), then it seems to me there is really no straightforward way of accounting for this distribution in terms of any normal model of cultural evolution. Some sort of intellectual leap is necessary and such leaps will always be difficult for certain people to accept.
"If you take the musical evidence seriously (which I'm pleased to see you do), then it seems to me there is really no straightforward way of accounting for this distribution in terms of any normal model of cultural evolution. Some sort of intellectual leap is necessary and such leaps will always be difficult for certain people to accept."
ReplyDeleteI disagree. I think we need to refine our models of cultural evolution (compare in biology the neutral model has taken off in the past decades), rather than walk away from them into conjectural histories of accidents and catastrophes. Believe it or not, I consider Levi-Strauss's approach to myth analysis as an underestimated tool for modeling cultural evolution. The breakdown of ancestral forms into polar opposites or mirror-images of each other is a "natural" process of cultural evolution. The whole science of kinship terminologies is infused with these binary structures: exogamy vs. endogamy, Dravidian vs. Kariera, etc. This is different from a simple-to-complex model of evolution that involves piecemeal addition of features, or from complex-to-simple that involves the progressive loss of features.
Hence, I personally don't see a problem with having two macrotypes of music (A and B in your terminology) as more or less equally ancient (predating the human dispersal from a homeland). I think we underestimate the impact of bottlenecks and cultural drift in small populations. And I mean it not as a reflection of a catastrophe but as a normal pattern of change. If such a sharp division of musical styles exist it must be product of an ancient split, while human populations were still small. Tense solo vocalizing evolved as a direct mirror image of multi-part open-throated group singing. Later migrations redistributed these two types across the globe.
I can recommend reading genetic studies on South American Indian populations that document amazing levels of inter-group diversities (half of whole Tokyo concentrated is one tribal group). Populations split along family lines, migrate away, diverge sharply in a few generations.
The largest portion of current inter-group differences between human populations are retentions from this early stage of small drifting demes.
If musicologists such as yourself or Jordania consider polyphony original and monophony derived, I'm fine with it. However, I have a feeling that the transformation of polyphony and monophony occurred early on. And since polyphony and monophony are abundantly attested outside of Africa, while Sub-Saharan Africa seems to be fixed on polyphony, the earliest split occurred outside of Africa, with African populations carrying with them into Africa only a subset of original tribal musical variation.
Sorry for appearing to push this idea again and again. Take it as an illustration of a principle, rather than a prescription.
German: "If musicologists such as yourself or Jordania consider polyphony original and monophony derived, I'm fine with it."
ReplyDeleteAn important difference between us, German, is that you tend to see things in terms of basic principles and even universals, whereas I tend to see things in terms of what the evidence appears to be saying, particularly the evidence reflecting distribution patterns.
So it makes sense that you would look to Levi-Strauss, who also saw things mostly in terms of universal principles. Don't get me wrong, I'm an admirer of Levi-Strauss and regard his work as important.
Jordania provides a very good reason for considering polyphony original. He points to the fact that everywhere we look in the recorded history of traditional societies (as opposed to modern societies where music has become professionalized) we see the loss of polyphony or else its continuation. There are no recorded instances that he could think of (or I could think of either) where a monophonic tradition morphs into a polyphonic one. Discounting, of course, the activities of Christian missionaries, who want everyone to sing hymns.
The relative distribution of polyphony and monophony worldwide strongly suggests that the polyphonic traditions are older, since survivals of traditional vocal polyphony are almost always found in remote refuge areas, an observation I must also credit to Jordania, though this had occurred to me as well. Such a distribution is consistent with these being older, more traditional societies that had been marginalized by more advanced ones.
Finally, we see strikingly similar polyphonic traditions in isolated pockets spread out through widely different regions. Not only P/B, which of course you know about, but there are others as well, notably the very distinctive style Jordania has called "Drone Dissonance," best known for its manifestation in Bulgaria, where the singers emphasize very sharp dissonances. Strikingly similar styles have been found in Flores, New Guinea, Melanesia, Taiwan, even Tibet. Not to mention mountain regions of Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia, etc. Such a distribution is also a sign of great age, especially when we consider the time that would have been required for these traditions to have spread out as widely as they have after the earliest divergence.
Even the most "logical" principle must be validated by the evidence, German, at least when we are discussing anthropology. I see no evidence for the sort of "original dualism of polyphony and monophony" you are proposing. It is as purely theoretical as original sin, another "logical" idea that won't hold water.
"Jordania provides a very good reason for considering polyphony original. He points to the fact that everywhere we look in the recorded history of traditional societies (as opposed to modern societies where music has become professionalized) we see the loss of polyphony or else its continuation. There are no recorded instances that he could think of (or I could think of either) where a monophonic tradition morphs into a polyphonic one."
ReplyDeleteI'm very familiar with this empirical situation. Some of the key ancestral kin terminological patterns are only known to dissolve or to morph into other patterns but never to emerge from other patterns. Precisely by observing these ever-dissipating forms on a worldwide scale that it was possible to formulate the out of America hypothesis in the first place.
"I see no evidence for the sort of "original dualism of polyphony and monophony" you are proposing. It is as purely theoretical as original sin, another "logical" idea that won't hold water."
You have no evidence for polyphony underlying iterative one beat unison style.
In any case, the whole science of historical linguistics is based on systematic sound correspondences, which presuppose evolutionary relationships based not on auditory/visual similarity but on a recurrent underlying pattern ("logic"). Historical linguistics goes beyond written attestations of ancient languages to reconstruct a proto-language. You may consider this methodology too mentalist, but that's what science looks like. Levi-Strauss emulated this principle in myths. So, I think what you maybe underestimating is the structural parallelism between tense solo vocalizing and open-throated group singing, indicating a very early split. They sound very different (Eng five and Latin quinque seem to have nothing in common either, but in fact they are related words bound by a network of regular sound correspondences) but in reality they may be manifestations of a single structural theme.
German: "You have no evidence for polyphony underlying iterative one beat unison style."
ReplyDeletePolyphonic vocalizing pervades sub-Saharan Africa and there is no trace anywhere on that continent of anything like the vocal style of either Australian Aborigines or American Indians. Since the scenario I've been exploring is based on the Out of Africa model, this in itself would constitute strong evidence that polyphonic vocalizing preceded unison-iterative-1 beat.
If that model is falsified, which could be the case, then I would need to start again from scratch.
As I see it, science is not so much about establishing absolute truth as exploring various possibilities and assessing the likelihood of each.
If we came from the Americas and not from Africa, which is possible, that would, of course, change everything. That's the model you are exploring and I wish you well with it. Let's see how far it can take you.
German: "So, I think what you maybe underestimating is the structural parallelism between tense solo vocalizing and open-throated group singing, indicating a very early split."
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting idea, that might be worth developing. Solo vocalizing is certainly important among Pygmy and Bushmen groups, and an opposition between solo and group singing is manifested in the manner in which many polyphonic songs originate in dreams and are then passed on to other members of the group via a basic, underlying melodic line. This process is discussed toward the end of Post 231.
There is no opposition between tense and relaxed voices (all Pygmy and Bushmen voices are extremely relaxed), but the opposition between solo and group vocalizing could lead, I suppose, to a sort of Levi-Srauss type structuralist analysis. Whether this would be a purely intellectual exercise or have some more fundamental significance isn't clear to me at the moment.
"between tense and relaxed voices (all Pygmy and Bushmen voices are extremely relaxed)..."
ReplyDeleteDidn't Lomax argue for a correlation between polyphony and relaxed voice?
Wouldn't this also mean a correlation between monophony and tense voice?
One of the things I'm not understanding in cantometrics is whether individual features co-vary and co-occur or they are purely independent one from another? In kinship studies, linguistics as well as in paleobiology and odontology traits co-vary inherently....
"Polyphonic vocalizing pervades sub-Saharan Africa and there is no trace anywhere on that continent of anything like the vocal style of either Australian Aborigines or American Indians. Since the scenario I've been exploring is based on the Out of Africa model, this in itself would constitute strong evidence that polyphonic vocalizing preceded unison-iterative-1 beat."
ReplyDeleteThis is not evidence, this is your interpretation based on an alternative information source, which has nothing to do with music. The Busby thesis, I thought, does a good job clearing cantometrics of the cultural add-ons that Lomax introduced. But you're infusing cantometrics with molecular data. This is a version of Lomax's fallacy. (In linguistic classifications, no extra-linguistic information is considered a valid reason to argue for one grouping vs. another.) What would constitute a piece of evidence is a transitional form between P/B and iterative one-beat unison found somewhere in a marginal zone of Australia or North America.
"This is an interesting idea, that might be worth developing. Solo vocalizing is certainly important among Pygmy and Bushmen groups, and an opposition between solo and group singing is manifested in the manner in which many polyphonic songs originate in dreams and are then passed on to other members of the group via a basic, underlying melodic line. This process is discussed toward the end of Post 231."
ReplyDeleteWhat you wrote is the following:
"[According to Emmanuelle Olivier,] [t]he “supernatural energy-songs” representing almost half of the Ju|’hoansi repertoire are given to healers in dreams or during trance, where the spirits of dead ancestors, sing “in the three tessituras” while the healer sings a melody along with them “in the principal tessitura” (1998:366). Upon awaking, "he/she sings this melody to his/her spouse without variations (repeating it identically) and the spouse follows the healer’s vocal line, but tries to avoid an identical reproduction of what he/she is singing. Once the principal vocal line has been memorized, the healer then elaborates two other melodies in the secondary tessituras. The principal vocal line is then transmitted to the other members of the village who try in turn to imitate it without exactly reproducing it . . . Once the melodies have been memorized in the three tessituras, each singer begins to elaborate variations."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Significantly, dreams through which spirits transmit songs to the living, as described above . . . are a part of Aka culture as well. Kisliuk recounts a story told by an Aka woman about the dream origin of an eboka (a performance combining song and dance), transmitted by a deceased man to his sister, who is expected to teach it to her husband, who will then teach it, in turn, to the young men of the group. According to Kisliuk, “an eboka can emerge as a mystical, dreamed gift within a family, transferred across genders and across the threshold of death” (Kisliuk 1998:177–78). In a personal communication, she has additionally called my attention to the striking resemblance between the Aka practice of cross-gender transmission, from male spirit to female dreamer to male spouse, and thence to the other males, and what happens among the Ju|’hoansi, where the (usually) male shaman will transmit the dreamed song to his wife, who then teaches it to the other women (personal communication, Kisliuk, 30 October 2007)."
So, my question is: isn't it the description of a process by which monophony (a single melodic line) is converted into polyphony after this melodic line has been "downloaded" from an ancestor? I remember cited an example from a North American Indian tribe in which men sing monophonically and thereby voice the spirits.
BTW, cross-gender transmission of names and souls from ancestors to the living has been described for Bushmen (as well as for some Papuan groups and South American Ge Indians).
German: "Didn't Lomax argue for a correlation between polyphony and relaxed voice?
ReplyDeleteWouldn't this also mean a correlation between monophony and tense voice?"
Lomax believed he had found a correlation between tense voiced solo and/or unison singing and sexual repression, in the form of sanctions controlling women. This was based on correlations between the Cantometric data and data from the Murdock Ethnographic Atlas. There was a corresponding correlation between open-voiced, well blended group singing (often polyphonic, but not always) and a "complementary" relation between men and women, in which women contribute more or less equally to food production and have relatively equal status as a result. This remains, for me, the most convincing of all his cultural correlations -- though it's still not clear if the musical practice necessarily follows from relative sexual freedom, or whether there is a common cause of both.
"One of the things I'm not understanding in cantometrics is whether individual features co-vary and co-occur or they are purely independent one from another?"
Certain musical features do co-occur, yes.
German: "This is not evidence, this is your interpretation based on an alternative information source, which has nothing to do with music. The Busby thesis, I thought, does a good job clearing cantometrics of the cultural add-ons that Lomax introduced. But you're infusing cantometrics with molecular data."
ReplyDeleteBoth Lomax and I published studies based on statistical analyses of the musical evidence alone, without "cultural add-ons," very similar in some ways to what Busby has done. But why limit yourself to only one approach, why not take advantage of every tool in the toolbox?
You sound like a censor. Do you really want to argue that certain types of research are forbidden because they don't meet with your personal stamp of approval?
"You sound like a censor. Do you really want to argue that certain types of research are forbidden because they don't meet with your personal stamp of approval?"
ReplyDeleteIt's not censoring. I do believe in developing and improving methodologies. This is fundamental science. Not necessarily quantitative. Nothing along these lines are my personal inventions, as you're trying to present it. There're "best practices" out there. Scholars constantly improve on their work. Historical linguists are probably the most stringent ones (and sometimes, true, somewhat narrow-minded). You can ignore them but why not study them and if you disagree suggest alternatives.
But you did hit on a key issue between us. My disagreements with geneticists often stem from their faulty methodologies. My disagreement with your Toba argument is methodological as well. I'm fine with unusual and even preposterous conclusions but I am opinionated when it comes to methodologies. Jordania's book is methodologically sound. And, no surprise, it doesn't argue for recent out of Africa.
German: "So, my question is: isn't it the description of a process by which monophony (a single melodic line) is converted into polyphony after this melodic line has been "downloaded" from an ancestor?"
ReplyDeleteStrictly speaking, the process begins with a polyphonic interchange between the spirits and the dreamer during the dream (or trance). The polyphonic structure (strictly speaking, a conflation of polyphony and heterophony, organized around a fundamental melody, or "theme") is then encoded by the dreamer into a single melodic line, which he (or she) then uses to teach the song to a spouse or sibling of the opposite sex. The original is then reconstituted when the spouse or sibling then teaches the song to other members of the group, who sing it polyphonically/heterophonically more or less as the dreamer originally experienced it in the dream. This process, which I discuss in my recently published article, in Ethnomusicology, I find absolutely fascinating, especially because of the conflation of polyphony, heterophony and solo song, which, as I believe I was able to demonstrate, is a pervasive feature of BOTH Bushmen AND Pygmy music. So P/B is not simply polyphonic, it is also in a sense monophonic as well, which has led me to speculate that it could be considered a "comprehensive" style, from which all other musical styles, including both heterophony and monophony could have been derived.
So in this case, I have to admit that my thinking has turned in the direction of something that could be called a "basic principle" of musical evolution, and since this is what you have continually been demanding from me, I presume you would approve. :-)
The difference between us is that for me this is mostly an interesting possibility that warrants further investigation, while for you such a principle means nothing unless it is presented as some sort of fundamental truth.
"I remember cited an example from a North American Indian tribe in which men sing monophonically and thereby voice the spirits."
The transmission of important information in dreams and trance, in the form of music, myths, rituals, etc., is found among many indigenous peoples. It is certainly an important mode of spiritual transmission among Australian Aborigines, who learn many of their songs in dreams. I strongly suspect that all such traditions have a common root in HBC.
"BTW, cross-gender transmission of names and souls from ancestors to the living has been described for Bushmen (as well as for some Papuan groups and South American Ge Indians)."
Interesting.
German: "Jordania's book is methodologically sound."
ReplyDeleteJordania and I have never had a problem with each other, despite our differences on some very fundamental issues, because neither of us has a problem with criticism or disagreement. We had a long, detailed and frank exchange via email that always remained friendly and I think we both learned something.
I am unable to accept his theory of music as an adaptation to the threat posed by predators or his related theory of the gradual decline of musical aptitude due to the development of articulated speech. And he remains unable to accept the possibility that important traditions, such as polyphonic singing, can be lost due simply to contingencies (such as Toba) and not necessarily on the basis of fundamental evolutionary principles.
Our differences are amplified by the fact that my viewpoint is dominated by the Out of Africa paradigm and his is still rooted in the multi-regional model.
"And, no surprise, it doesn't argue for recent out of Africa."
No, because he is a follower of Wolpoff and accepts the multi-regional perspective of history. Only his theory is based on an earlier version of multi-regionalism that has been thoroughly rejected, even by Wolpoff himself. I don't think anyone argues anymore that all the many similarities among so many different groups worldwide are the result of convergent evolution, nor does anyone (but you) feel that they can simply dismiss the very powerful and convincing genetic evidence. Jordania's ideas about the origins of language and the evolution of music are therefore unsound for the same reason yours are unsound. So it's not surprising that you have no problem with his book. It seems to me that both of you are living in an intellectual world that has, not unlike the ideas of Lysenko, receded into irrelevance, which is why your ideas seem so quaint.
"Strictly speaking, the process begins with a polyphonic interchange between the spirits and the dreamer during the dream (or trance)..."
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting. I tried to get access to your latest Ethnomusicology paper, but Tozzer didn't receive it yet.
"I am unable to accept his theory of music as an adaptation to the threat posed by predators or his related theory of the gradual decline of musical aptitude due to the development of articulated speech."
I don't care for the former. But the latter is a very intriguing theory. And it conforms to scientific standards: seek an explanation of cultural phenomena within culture itself. He may be wrong but at least it's methodologically sound.
"And he remains unable to accept the possibility that important traditions, such as polyphonic singing, can be lost due simply to contingencies (such as Toba) and not necessarily on the basis of fundamental evolutionary principles."
I agree with Jordania. It's very 19th century to attribute cultural change to natural catastrophes.
"my viewpoint is dominated by the Out of Africa paradigm and his is still rooted in the multi-regional model."
You're trying to present out of Africa as an advance over Multiregional. They are just too different theories, each with their strengths and drawbacks. Genetics supports out of Africa, archaeology supports Multiregional. You haven't demonstrated a single origin of all human musical styles. And you've acknowledge it. Until you do this for internal musical reasons, Multiregional, whichever version of it, will be the best fit for musical evidence.
"nor does anyone (but you) feel that they can simply dismiss the very powerful and convincing genetic evidence."
Non-geneticists, including you, find genetic evidence powerful and convincing because they don't understand it. Like proverbial cavemen who had an awe for natural phenomena. I use the very sound results produced by the very same genetic labs to argue against out of Africa. For instance, the most recent paper by Schuster et al. reporting on the whole genome of Bushmen and Bantu says: "E: predominant in Africa and African- Americans (emerged via back migration into Africa, 50,000 ybp)." I'm sure you know that E lineages are the most common in Sub-Saharan Africa and I hope you'll soon find a way how to marry this cutting-edge genetic evidence with your quaint approach to the evolution of music.
"Jordania's ideas about the origins of language and the evolution of music are therefore unsound for the same reason yours are unsound."
Since you've rejected the scientific method on a number of occasions I presume you won't be trying to disprove Jordania's ideas on musical grounds.
Of course my overall worldview is different from Jordania's (single origin of modern humans vs. Multiregional), but he made a few excellent points in his book. E.g., linguistic evolution has been going on for a longer period of time outside of Africa and there's no morphological continuity between Bushmen or "Negroids" and Late Pleistocene Africans. Out of Africa theorists have been trying to sweep them under the rug, but that's not the best way to make Multuregional outdated or out-of-America preposterous.
"So P/B is not simply polyphonic, it is also in a sense monophonic as well, which has led me to speculate that it could be considered a "comprehensive" style, from which all other musical styles, including both heterophony and monophony could have been derived.
ReplyDeleteSo in this case, I have to admit that my thinking has turned in the direction of something that could be called a "basic principle" of musical evolution, and since this is what you have continually been demanding from me, I presume you would approve."
Yes, I approve. Isn't it what Cohen reported for the Q'ero Indians? "Twenty people may be packed together inside, drinking, singing heterophonically, with conch trumpets blasting. Sometimes, late in the night, the individual qualities become less apparent as people find accord between them, reaching a degree of musical consensus. At this point, the sustained final note of a phrase provides a drone beneath the individual voices. Occasional multi-part texture occurs, and the whole event takes on a choral sound" (Cohen, J. 1998. Q’ero. In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 2, South America, Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean, p. 229).
German: "Of course my overall worldview is different from Jordania's (single origin of modern humans vs. Multiregional), but he made a few excellent points in his book."
ReplyDeleteAll Jordania's ideas are interesting. He is aware of many of the problems that others ignore and he has a remarkable imagination, which I appreciate. Also his work on European polyphony is extremely thorough, scholarly and imo very important.
But his theories of linguistic and musical evolution are based on assumptions that are not only untested but probably incapable of being tested. That is NOT how science is done and it is not a sound methodology, sorry. Any scientific theory must be falsifiable. And no amount of research on the distribution of stuttering could possibly either confirm or falsify such a theory.
German: "Isn't it what Cohen reported for the Q'ero Indians? "Twenty people may be packed together inside, drinking, singing heterophonically, with conch trumpets blasting." etc.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed by your zeal in tracking down juicy bits of ethnomusicological research, German. Yes, it sounds like what Cohen reported could be relevant, sure. I haven't read that chapter and I suppose I should. There are many traditions where we find bits and pieces of P/B and many of them are in S. and C. America, yes. But it's only among the Pygmies and Bushmen that we find the tradition in full flower, in all its complexity. And only among the Pygmies and Bushmen do we find P/B performed on a regular basis, as an everyday part of social life, rather than as part of a planned (and often rehearsed) ritual.
"And no amount of research on the distribution of stuttering could possibly either confirm or falsify such a theory."
ReplyDeleteYou're right. But if it turns out that stuttering co-varies with other aspects of speech, it'll be come testable. Jordania is capable of thinking laterally identifying diverse patterns that may potentially dovetail with each other to form a testable theory. I think a Multiregional model appeals to him precisely because it allows for greater flexibility and interdisciplinarity, rather than because he believes that science "proved" it. Unfortunately, out of Africa theorists actually believe that they proved their theory.
"But it's only among the Pygmies and Bushmen that we find the tradition in full flower, in all its complexity. And only among the Pygmies and Bushmen do we find P/B performed on a regular basis, as an everyday part of social life, rather than as part of a planned (and often rehearsed) ritual."
In my perusal of ethnomusicological literature, I do keep coming across the pattern whereby polyphonic and monophonic/unison/solo styles occur on different social occasions (society vs. family, women vs. men, adults vs. children, ritual vs. quotidien). This would be my stab at circumscribing an original subdivided musical tradition.