Thursday, January 31, 2019

The Global Groove

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What follows is the final chapter, lightly edited, of my (self-published) e-book, The Life and Times of a Musical Virus: A Critical History ...
Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Sounding the Depths goes paperback

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Sounding the Depths , the "blog-book" discussed in the previous post, is now complete in eighteen chapters, readable either onlin...
6 comments:
Sunday, February 6, 2011

341. Blog-Book

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The book project I referred to in the previous post has been completed, though some chapters still need work. I changed the title to Soundin...
Tuesday, October 26, 2010

340. A New Website

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After 339 posts, I may have reached the point where I either have no more to say or may simply have run out of steam as far as this blog is ...
1 comment:
Monday, September 13, 2010

339. Tonoexodus 2

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In a recent comment, Maju called our attention to a very interesting new article in which a possible connection between tonal and non-tonal ...
8 comments:
Sunday, September 12, 2010

338. Tonoexodus

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As I see it, there is little question that the earliest languages must have been tone languages. Since modern humans are almost universally ...
8 comments:
Thursday, September 2, 2010

337. Did Music Originate as a Behavioral Adaptation? -- 8: Speech

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Most linguists have managed to convince themselves that tone languages must have derived from non-tone languages, under the assumption that ...
7 comments:
Wednesday, September 1, 2010

336. Did Music Originate as a Behavioral Adaptation? -- 7: Speech

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In her recent Scientific American article, Speaking in Tones , psychologist Diana Deutsch describes some remarkable research, by herself an...
2 comments:
Monday, August 30, 2010

335. Did Music Originate as a Behavioral Adaptation? -- 6: Speech

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It's not very difficult to see that the development of language would have provided early humans with an enormous adaptational advantage...
Saturday, August 28, 2010

334. Did Music Originate as a Behavioral Adaptation? -- 5: Speech

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When evaluating musical behavior as an adaptation, it's essential to ask ourselves, before anything else, what it is, exactly, that make...
Thursday, August 26, 2010

333. Did Music Originate as a Behavioral Adaptation? -- 4

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On the following page, Dissanayake makes a questionable, though all too common, assumption: "Although ritual ceremonies are cultural in...
Tuesday, August 24, 2010

332. Did Music Originate as a Behavioral Adaptation? -- 3

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Vocalizing together in precisely timed harmony, counterpoint, or interlock, is one of the most highly cooperative activities of which humans...

331. Did Music Originate as a Behavioral Adaptation? -- 2

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With reference to the "gibbon-like nature of [Bonobo] long-distance hooting," as quoted at the end of my last post, I'll once ...
Monday, August 23, 2010

330. Did Music Originate as a Behavioral Adaptation? -- 1

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This brief video presents the essential elements of a remarkable experiment: The "subject" is not only willing to share, but goes ...
Saturday, August 21, 2010

329. Some Thoughts on Evolution, Natural and Cultural: 13

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I've returned from my trip and am now taking some time to research the sort of Bonobo vocalizations described by Frans de Waal, as quote...
1 comment:
Saturday, August 7, 2010

328. Some Thoughts on Evolution, Natural and Cultural: 12

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If, as I strongly suspect, the vocalizations of our earliest ancestors resembled those of today's Pygmies and Bushmen, then there's ...
Friday, August 6, 2010

327. Some Thoughts on Evolution, Natural and Cultural: 11

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One of the things that distinguishes Pygmy and Bushmen singing from literally all other indigenous music is the extraordinary degree of coop...
Thursday, August 5, 2010

326. Some Thoughts on Evolution, Natural and Cultural: 10

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There is, of course, a great deal to be said on the topic of the human mind and its relation to both Darwinian evolution and culture. And a ...
4 comments:
Wednesday, August 4, 2010

325. Some Thoughts on Evolution, Natural and Cultural: 9

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If evolution, and even life itself, can be understood in terms of a "complementary" relation between the materialist viewpoint of ...
Sunday, August 1, 2010

324. Some Thoughts on Evolution, Natural and Cultural: 8

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For describing our mental activity, we require, on one hand, an objectively given content to be placed in opposition to a perceiving subject...
Saturday, July 31, 2010

323. Some Thoughts on Evolution, Natural and Cultural: 7

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To put the problem somewhat differently: On the one hand, if everything, including the mind, can be understood in purely Darwinian, i.e., ma...
1 comment:
Friday, July 30, 2010

322. Some Thoughts on Evolution, Natural and Cultural: 6

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The human brain is a machine which alone accounts for all our actions, our most private thoughts, our beliefs. It creates . . . the sense of...
Thursday, July 29, 2010

321. Some Thoughts on Evolution, Natural and Cultural: 5

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While the trick I described is extremely simple, it's also extremely deceptive. I'd like to think that anyone with some scientific t...

320. Some Thoughts on Evolution, Natural and Cultural: 4

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If you thought explaining organs such as the heart, kidneys, eyes, etc. presented a challenge to Darwinian evolution, consider the brain. Le...