Ref:Dr Jordan Jordania & Kevn Simler

By Sadanand

3 Mins Read

Music… What can I say? Music is the most mysterious Phenomenon in human evolution. One of my favorite, and a common thing everyone connects( To their choice of genres). I listen to ~1980s Iliyaraja, to 2020’s contemporary Deep/Progressive House, DubStep and Trance etc. I can pretty much enjoy all Genres. Music is the most powerful medium we all connect from early human evolution to Gen-Z. Regardless of Geo-location, Religion, age, Young and old.Everyone Relates to Music. At least one common thing we all generations inline with.

Not sure if Darwin or someone else covered the origin/evolution of Music.

No wonder Music is so widespread and has vast revenue, success rate in the market for decades. The Music industry made lots of legends, produced great talent and Personalities in every decade like Mozart, Beethoven in the 1700s, Beatles, Metallica, Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, Jenni Rivera, Tupak in the 18th-19th Century, Adele, Rihanna, Alan Walker, Avici,  and the rest of the young musicians in 20-21st century. Unfortunately, no Asian or Indian greatest musicians like Iliyaraja , Rahman couldn’t be in the global spot. Only because they are regional language musicians and these languages have limited reach globally

Research has shown that music can Keep Your Brain Young from Johns Hopkins Medicine. Luckily there are no side effects to listening to Music.We can enjoy how much ever we want, unlike our favorite food and drinks.

So How did Music evolved ?

Theory 1 based on Jordan Jordania

We all know our ancestors during Hunters Gatherers Period, they had to eat food and survive the Predators in early human evolution. They had to go Hunt for food in forests. There will be lot of Predators and other competitors on field. Wild and poisonous animals around them. So Man had only two choices to earn food and Survive those predators

1st,  Find some animal, trap, kill and eat it.However, there will be Wild, and strong animals like Lion, Tiger, etc. man had to compete with these much stronger physically with no weapons and limited knowledge during that time

2nd, Lay Low, While some wild animals do 1st job, and once they leave premises, eat the leftovers. It’s an easy choice but not too many perks with this option. But it was one of the survival mechanism in early human life

Do you know humans survived on leftover meat/bones for a very long time by eating marrow and other piece of meat which is hard to extract from dead animal due to our unique capabilities of breaking and eating them with stones and early tools invented? It gave enough calories to Survive for a decent amount of period.

To accomplish 1 and 2, humans invented tools/weapons to break bones eat meat, bone marrow, and also confront other animals in a food competition. However, even with those limited and not very powerful tools, they couldn’t win over giant animals like lions, tigers, and all the rest since they are physically stronger than humans. So they had to devise techniques to fight or scare these animals for food, defend against them, and use the same to survive the predators.

So they adopted loud singing rhythmically with random sounds; shouting and aggressive body movements made their central defensive mechanism to threaten or intimidate the opposite animals. This method is known as an Audio-Visual Intimidating Display. Don’t we display similar mechanism if a dog tries to attack us ? So to Intimidate those wild animals and win the food battle, humans started making these random sounds by singing and humming rhythmic noises.These random humming noises and rhythmic sounds slowly took different forms and were shaped by other people’s creativity and started as Music as human generations evolved

We humans species are few who can sing on earth with rhythm. Many birds, whales, and dolphins sing, but only when they are on trees or water, not when they land on the ground. Other than few

Today, we still use these Audio-Visual Intimidating Display Techniques of humming and rhythmic chants in Rugby Games and other sports to intimidate/scare opposite teams. Here is an example

It was also very crucial not to let other wild animals kill and eat a human. Our ancestors want to convey that humans are clever and not a good meal to animals. And not let animals remember human tase/smell for long periods.This was important for early humans because, unlike a poisonous species, human meat is worth eating if a predator can get away with it. Created early principles like

• If some Predator attacks a human during a confrontation for food or Survival, Make Sure it Gets Injured.
• If a predator manages to kill one of your fellow humans, Don’t Let it Eat. Retrieve the body of your fallen comrade, or your whole tribe will be in danger.
• When a human dies naturally, ensure the corpse is properly disposed of. The corpse is a liability because a predator will associate even a scavenged meal (of human meat) with ‘profitability.’

I think it is a great contribution to humans in Evolution and we should all appreciate it. Not every-time science should get the credit

Theory2:

Some say Music was born out and revolutionized from Meditation in the East. People who went deep into Meditation, enjoyed the silence and loved that Peace, conveying that you are far more than you think and as big as the whole Universe. “Music is something like Space between Mind and Meditation. It’s something not biological and not concerned with Chemistry or Physiology. Music is beyond the Mind and Reason” –Osho

Sounds Profound about but not sure if I understood, so out of two theories I am convinced with 1st

So starting from finding food and surviving from Predators, Music is helping making food, living and celebrities for thousands of artists and it revolutionized and widespread to all Geo Locations, Languages, Industries and Several Genres like Rock, Jazz, Classical, Reggae, HipHop, Electronic, House, Sufi and many other

I think music is one of the very few medium helps plays roles in lot of emotional aspects like Friendship, Love , Relationships and lot of other things. Words are Poor…..Music is Rich. It has power to replace words sometimes. Probably the reason Electronic Music (Without Lyrics) came into its place

Whatever Freaking reason music came into Existence.Let’s not care much. It happened for greater Good and let’s experience it Together🎧

Peace…✌🏿