The Evolutionary Approach

to Musical Signification
Marcin Strzelecki
Academy of Music, Krakow

I would like to discuss here one of very interesting branches of

contemporary musicology
which is - to me - a biomusicology
i am trying to collect and classify some of the ideas,
and to make general conclusions
i think that evolutionary approach brings on some consequences into the
field of general musicology, and may tell us something about general
culture, aesthetics, as well

general framework of evolutionary cycle

object

change
evaluation

death

life

at the very abstract level THE EVOLUTION is kind of cycle

this is universal model, very obvious, trivial
it takes roots from the pure phisical world
according to the theory of entropy,
objects of the world are under kind of environmental pression
some objects can change, this is what we call adaptation
some changes are succesful - and give them chance to exist, still, despite the
pression
objects evolve to become better and better adapted to the environment
in biology this basic framework works like this...

general framework of evolutionary cycle

population
individual

individual

individual

individual
individual

individual

individual

individual

evaluation

death

there is a population of individuals

life

general framework of evolutionary cycle

population
individual

individual

individual

individual
individual

individual

individual

individual

environment

fitness

death

life

the environment provides criteria for the evaluation

each individual have a property,
which is a level of environmental fittness

general framework of evolutionary cycle

population
individual

individual

individual

individual
individual

individual

individual

individual

environment

fitness

no replication

replication

the higher fitness

the higher probability of reproduction

general framework of evolutionary cycle

population
individual

individual

individual

individual

operators

individual

individual

individual

individual

environment

mutation
fitness

no replication

operators like
mutation and...

replication

general framework of evolutionary cycle

population
individual

individual

individual

individual

operators

individual

individual

individual

individual

crossover

environment

mutation
fitness

no replication

replication

crossover
realize the idea of change and rsults in the phenomenon of adaptation

general framework of evolutionary cycle

population
child

individual

individual

individual

individual

operators

individual

individual

individual

individual

crossover

environment

mutation
fitness

no replication

replication

parent

so finally we have parent individuals and children

and the cycle is closed
the constructive power of such very, very basic mechanism
lies in the fact that the cycle is repeated thousands, milions, and
milions of miolions times
it works slowly but surely ;)
and may lead to very complex structures
and here we are :)

the general evolution mechanism

works within e.g.:

biology
genetics

culture
memetics

artistic
creation

consequences on
the musical signification problem

Ed Miranda, John Al Biles, eds.

Evolutionary computer music (Springer 2007)

such a general mechanism may be obsrved everywhere

in nature and culture
click
and can be adopt to some technics of artistic creation
there are interesting experiments of evolutionary images, and texts, and music creation
for example, in my everyday work i use so called genetic algorithms to search for interesting timbral soulutions among thousands of possible
instrument combinations, in order to fit some given aesthetic criteria
click
herein i will dusciss some consequences of the mechanism on the musical signification problem

the general evolution mechanism

works within e.g.:

biology
genetics

culture
memetics

consequences on
the musical signification problem

lets start with the biology of music

artistic
creation

systematic
musicology

neuro-psychology
cognitive
musicology

evolutionary
psychology

anthropology

bio-musicology

Evolutionary oriented musicology evolved from the systematic and cognitive musicology with some influences of other
modern branches of the science
One may obsrve an interesting shift within the cognitive paradigm
the cognitivists first discovered and examined some mechanisms in the human mind
and now they ask where they come from? what is their functions? why do they exist?
famous cognitive musicologists like Carol Krumhansl, David Huron, Ian Cross, to mention just a few
today - more and more - speak the biological language instead of the former, psychological

the biological origins of music

hypothesies

adaptive

non-adaptive

when trying to answer the question of the origins of those cognitive

mechanisms
one may observe two concurrent hypothesies
adaptive and non-adaptive

adaptive
changes of the genome (and anatomy)
music as a survival activity (functional)
long-term processes (neanderthals, animals)
the instinct of music (Mitchen)

S.J. Mitchen, H. Papousek, S. Brown, E. Dissanayake, E. Tolbert,

the first one states that there are particular, biological adaptations of human body and mind
in order to perform and to listen to music
scientists argue that music is one of fundamental activities
and serves several important functions
like:
group bonding (social integration) - music as a kind of vocal grooming
communicative function (like motherese language)
temporal synchronisation of the group
also music stimulates the intelectual skills (the Mozart effect)
music heals and so on
and of course, the favourite within evolustionists is the
matting function of music...

display hypothesis

culture is an emergent phenomenon arising from sexual competition

among vast numbers of individuals pursuing different mating
strategies in different mating arenas.
As every teenager knows and most psychologists forget,
cultural displays by males increase sexual access.
(Miller 1998, p. 119)

Miller, G. F.
How mate choice shaped human nature (1998)
Sexual selection for cultural displays (1999)

music provides basis for the sexual selection through the cultural display
-----since we may observe some kind of musical activity of the animals one may argue that there was enough time (like milions years) to adjust the genome in order to perform music
for example, there are no adaptations for reading, yet, because it is too recent, even we face some health problems when reading too much.
so, in short, adaptive apporach states that if we leave toddlers on the desert island
when adult, they would perform music, thanks to - so called - instict of music
althought it is very attractive hypothesis, puting music very high in the hierarchy of human activities - it tells us only about its function
(in fact in every traditional culture music is never an independent, autonomous activity
it is always related to some social events, and plays some functions)

so the adaptive apporach does not explain the inner content of the piece of music - so it says nothing about the meaning of music itself

non-adaptive
music as a by-product of other adaptations (parasitic)
biologicaly useless (non-functional)

S. Pinker, N. Kogan, W.H. McNeil, D. Sperber

the non-adaptive apporach is much better here

it states that music is itself biologicaly useless,
it is kind of parastic, by-product of other adaptations
lets listen to one of non-adaptive evolutionists
Steven Pinker

film

music as a by-product of
other adaptations, e.g.
- speech
- emotional calls
- motor control
maybe what music does is that it combines different pieces of
all other parts of the brain, packs them into a supernormal stimulus,
something that actually presses our buttons harder than anything
in the natural environment would, and we enjoy it.
Steven Pinker
How the mind works?
The language instinct
The blank slate

auditory cheesecake

personally, i like this actually very simple concept,

which says that the piece of music
is a set of extracted and concentrated stimuli
put together in particular way, to stir the emotions of the listener,
intensively

our response to sound/music

as a result of evolution

anyway, both apporaches state that our reaction to music evolved

and the history of such evolution is written in our cognitive mechanism
the question of the evolutionary roots of our reactions to music
leads into the field of ...

bio-aesthetics
evolutionary aesthetics

bioaesthetics or aveolutionary aesthetics

and here the real story begins!!!
to me, the main impact to write this text was an article about
experiments on aesthetic estimation of different landscapes, and
particular - trees

Savanna hypothesis

Orians, G.
An ecological and evolutionary approach to landscape aesthetics (1986)
Orians, G. H., & Heerwgen, J. H.
Evolved responses to landscapes (1992)

people were simply asked to choose most beautyfull trees from the presented images
it appeared that people significantly prefer trees of the african svanna, where - as we know - the human kind come from
moreover: Younger children, much more than older ones, prefer savannah landscapes of the kind our remote ancestors lived and evolved in, even when the children being studied have no
familiarity with savannahs.
there some other, interesting observations
i think all we have heard about the ideal proportions of woman body, present in every culture,
recently it appeard that so called waist-hip ratio correlates strongly with general health and fertility (in particular with optimal level of estrogen).
there are hundreds of similar data, like the worlds favourite colour is blue and so on and so on

biological response to sounds/music

obviously, it leads to the question about our innate reactions to

sounds.
today, many scientists examine such reactions of the humans and the
animals
for example the gestalt rules, described by Albert Bregman as main mechanism of the
audiory scene organisation, are purely neuro-biological

Stefani, G.
Il segno della musica (1981)
Reybrouck, M.
The musical code between nature and nurture: ecosemiotic and
neurobiological claims (2008)

and what may be interesting here, is that we may talk about

some biological basis, biological anchoring of the musical signification
there exist already some examples of this apporach
Edward Wilson - the founder of sociobiology - even postulated the integration of semiotics and biology
so far, it is not possible, however I think the biology can contribute to semiotics in some interesting way

language and music

for example, the eternal problem of musical semiotics - is music a language? - finds here a very simple explanation
music and language evolved from the same root - the vocal activity and auditory mechanisms
but later specialized in different domains of communication
language is good at precisely describing the word, giving naming the objects

but as a closed (syntactic and lexical) system, it is weak at describing complex and diverse emotions, the inner states of the subject

however music is weak at describing, naming and so on

we cannot play the melody saying give me a cup of tea, please
at least not without any external convention
but! music is strong at communicating emotional states
because it invokes emotions at a very phisiological level, very easily

language of emotions

it happens because the auditory cortex is connected directly to the

limbic system where the emotions come from, this system can
influence hormon flux, and further heart-rate, breathing rate and so on
emotional response is very fast, faster than laguage processing and conscious decisions
auditory system rpovides very effective way of informing about - for example - danger in the natural
environment, even about the distant or hidden danger, like predators.

India (Balkwill & Thompson, 1999)

Japan (Ohgushi & Hattori, 1996)
Italy (Baroni & Finarelli, 1994)
Germany (Langeheinecke, Schnitzler, Hischer-Buhrmeister, & Behne, 1999)
Sweden (Juslin, 1997)
Russia (Kotlyar & Morozov, 1976)
Western Hindustani (Balkwill, Thompson, & Matsunaga, 2004)

an increasing number of studies have highlighted

cross-cultural similarities in the low-level cues
(tempo, dynamics, timbre) used by musicians to
express particular emotions.
This body of research further suggests an underlying
universal code for emotion communication that are
intertwined with culture-dependant cues, as has been
observed with speech.
Livingstone S. R., W. F. Thompson
The emergence of music from the Theory of Mind

there are many researches on the emotional response to the particular

kinds of sounds, in musical cultures all around the world
here the interesting cross-cultural similarities are observed
and some underlying universals, as well
Livingstone i Thompson collected the results and set into kind of map:

Livingstone, S. R., & Thompson, W. F.

Multi-modal affective interaction: A comment on musical origins (2006)

particular coincidences of some musical features are mapped on general emotional

plane
of course, musicologists have been looking for such a simple dictionary for
hundreds of yeras, and we know it is not so simple within the artistic music
anyway those data derived from diffrent musical traditions are very interesting
however require further verifications and maybe improvements

explanations

Davies, S. (2001) Philosophical perspectives on musics expressiveness

Addis, L. (1999) Of Mind and Music
Clynes, M. (1977) Sentics: the Touch of Emotions
Scherer, K. R. (1991) Emotion expression in speech and music
Cross, I. (2001) Music, mind and evolution
Cross, I. (2003) Music and Emotion

e.g.
contour theory
resemblance theory
transposable meaning

to sum up this biological part i would like to mention about some explanations of those phenomenons
I think one of the most promising is the contour theory
emotional response presents particular dramaturgy, it takes time
we observe phases like condensation, sustain, climax, release and so on
different emotions show different arousal countour
when the temporal countour of musical tensions is synchronized with biological response, the kind of resonanse takes place, sometimes very strong
this theory is interesting because concerns not on abstracted, nontenporal auditory stimuli
but examines longer parts of music, and suggests that musical form, or narration may provoke an affect as well.
so, summing up, the piece of music may be regarded as a complex set of stimuli, activating (communicating) emotions, even at the very basic, biological level,
thanks to evolutionary adjusted cognitive mechanisms

the general evolution mechanism

works within e.g.:

biology
genetics

culture
memetics

artistic
creation

consequences on
the musical signification problem

as mentioned, general evolution may be observed...

(click)
...also at the cultural level

P.F. Jenkins: Cultural transmission of song patterns and dialect

development in free-living bird population (1978)

memetics

R. Dawkins
D. Hofstadter
(about 1980)

meme (analogous to a gene)

an idea, belief, pattern of behaviour (et c.)
hosted in one or more individual minds
can reproduce itself from mind to mind
one individual influencing another as
memetical reproduction
e.g. fashion, religious beliefs, musical style or patterns
about 1978 Jenksins published famous work about sharing and transforming melodic motives by birds, suggesting that animals can present culture-like behaviour
and about 1980 sociobiologists Dawkins & Hofstadter proposed a genetic-like model to describe cultural phenomenons, introducing the concept of memetics
they observed that the mental ideas, may be treated as gens, including their selfish reproduction.
moreover, those mems are most often reproduced which are related to survival level, like sex, food, or the shelter - place to live
so the cultural memetic mechanism may be also a product of biological evolution.
the mems can be also of musical provenience.
Dennet and Brodie say about melody as kind of musical virus (there is english word like earworm)
Please, remind first notes of beethovens the fifth

As its stored in our minds - it is a meme.

Ive just infected you with a copy of it.

general framework of evolutionary cycle

population
child

individual

individual

individual

individual

operators

individual

individual

individual

individual

crossover

environment

mutation
fitness

no replication

replication

parent

the basic evolutionary cycle may be adopted as....

general framework of evolutionary cycle

musical culture
child

individual

individual

individual

musical
pattern

individual

individual

operators
individual

individual

combination

audience

aesthetic
estimation

no propagation

propagation

transformation

parent

... here.
the pattern can be of a micro-scale
like melodic motive, harmonic progression, rhythmic pattern
or can be of the macro-scale, like style or technique
What advantages brings it on?

wandering melodies

Antonina Szybowska
O kontrafakturach, missae parodiae i wdrujcych melodiach w muzyce (nie
tylko) dawnej.
(On contrafacturae, missae parodiae and wandering melodies in the
(not only) ancient music)

Antonina Szybowska, Pawe Wsowicz

ywe czy martwe? O ewolucji warstwy melodycznej w polskich pieniach
religijnych
(Alive or dead? On the melodic evolution of polish religious songs.)

this perspective naturaly applies to the problem of sharing musical petterns within
the culture
those patterns are considered as live organisms, aiming at reproduction and
adaptation
an obvious application of this model is the stylometry, searching for so called
musical influences, or examing the cultural resonanse of some musical ideas.

... an attempt to integrate the central

concerns of analytical musicology with
a neo-Darwinian meme-selectionist
perspective.
Such a viewpoint may be used, it is
argued, to unify, under a systematic
new paradigm, understanding of
both local issues of musical
structure and organization, and
global issues of musical style
configuration and its diachronic
change.
Steven Jan

one of the most so-far interesting application is presented by Steven

Jan
who analyses particular pieces of music with use of this method
I would like to use this method to create sort of geographical map of influences within traditional, folk
music, where the processes are not so global, and go slower

R. Strauss
Metamorphosen
final bars

as some example of memetic mechanism i would like to show last 9 bars of Metamorphosen by
R. Strauss
The composer reports in his memoires that the quotation of Beethovens marcia funebre
simply, naturally flown out from the score. He composed the final movement being unaware
that Beethoven was leading him, until the end.
The meme has replicated here.
there are many similar composers reports.
z encyclopedia of creativity
[the composer] is not so much sonscious of his ideas as possesed by them. Very often he is unaware of his exact processes of thought till he is through with them; extremely
often the completed work is incomprehensible to him immediately afetr it is finished
Roger Sessions
cytowane przez Dennetta i Slobod

what is evolving?

i would like to end with some general reflection

the gen - basic term of genetics - is a unit of undefinied size
it is rather functional than morphological unit
the evolution takes places at all levels, all scales
applying the concept of memetics we may consider micro units, as well as macro
at the highest level we find musical styles, the music, or even the culture itself
what comes out than?

the balance

I think the culture is balacing between some extrema

there exesist products very close to the biology
and pieces of art that absolutely do not even try to be sexy ;)
the avangard music, eg. dodepahonic, is a good example of music loosing the biological anchor
of course everybody can compose what he/she likes
but our biology doesnt listen to philosophical arguments
so we should not complain or be surprised that our speculative aesthetic ideas sometimes simply do not work in real life
as we know so called high-music, or avangard music dramatically lost the audience during 20th century
recent studies show the public interest to contemporary music at the level of 0.3-0.5% of population
we may say that the meme of dodecaphony did not survive
just like other speculative concepts, including the meme of homo sovieticus, for example
click
nobody argues that we sholud promote some matting rituals like techno parties,
but between those extrema there is still enough room for alternative solutions

Zipfs law

K.J.Hsu i A.J.Hsu , Fractal Geometry of Music, Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci. USA, 87, (1990)

in music of Dufay, Mozart or Bach one may observe particular regularities

like linear relation between the size of the musical interval and probability of their occurence
click
such regularities do not exist for ex. in music of Stockhausen
of course here we will find many other formal regularities
but they do not arise from musical practice, and are not derived from perceptual mechanism
this is what prof. A. Jarzbska mentioned in one of articles
there exist two main concepts of musical coherence
the aristotelian one points at the rule, enigmatic formula, organizing the piece of art
in opposition, Platon claimed that both piece of music and human being are built on the same natural proportions
and during perceiving music a kind of resonanse occurs, we perceive music somehow naturally as coherent entity.

conclusions

Darwin said that

not the strongest
and not the most intelligent species will survive
but those which best response the change
I think that is why music are still in evolution
so ... let it evolve!!!

evolutionary apporach provokes many doubts and questions

some call it jus-so stories, diffcult to verify
it his highly speculative
and moreover politicaly involved
people usually do not like evolution
Emma Darwin (nee Wedgwood)
ale te inna refleksa
to co istnieje istnieje dlaczego, bo mamy jak korzy, bo gdzie zaistniao i trwa
jei obserwujemy dane zjawisko zawsze moemy zapyta co takiego ono ze sob niesie, e jest
jei co jest to byo lub jest potrzebne