How music rewires and impacts the human body | Michael Spitzer: Full Interview

Michael Spitzer, a professor of music at the University of Liverpool, discusses his book "The Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth," which explores music's origins and evolution. Inspired by Yuval Harari's "Sapiens," Spitzer aims to provide a broader historical context for music, noting that it predates Homo sapiens by at least a million years and is universal, even extending to animals like birds and whales. The prehistory of music is challenging to reconstruct due to the biodegradability of materials. While lithic instruments like rock gongs offer ancient evidence, the most significant discovery has been 40,000-year-old bone flutes from German caves, made from griffin vulture bones. Early frame drums likely emerged with ceramics, and string instruments like harps and lutes appeared after the invention of farming, using animal guts. Given the lack of direct evidence, inferences are drawn from various disciplines, including anatomy, tool technology, linguistics, and observations of modern hunter-gatherer societies. One inferential argument points to Homo Erectus's invention of the bifacial axe 1.5 million years ago. The symmetry of this axe suggests an aesthetic appreciation for form and the cognitive capacity for symmetry. This capacity is cross-modal, implying that Homo Erectus likely applied it to sound, creating symmetrical rhythms or musical meter. The origin of music is seen as the assembly of various elements over time. Bipedalism, emerging 4.4 to 4 million years ago, established the rhythm of walking, which has profoundly influenced human music. Walking also forged links between the brain, muscular exertion, and sound, teaching hominins to perceive footsteps as patterns, thus creating a sense of time and predictability. The metaphor of "music moving" stems from this ancient association with journeys, echoing ancestral migrations out of Africa. Evolutionary adaptations stemming from bipedalism further enabled musical development. Cranial volume tripled, leading to increased intelligence and dexterity, crucial for crafting and playing instruments. The descent of the larynx and the evolution of the hyoid bone allowed for a greater variety of articulated sounds. This excess of sound, beyond purely functional calls (like those of vervet monkeys), allowed for playful experimentation with sound for its own sake, marking a departure from animal vocalization. Music is deeply intertwined with memory and history. Ancient traditions, like teaching tool-making, rely on "congealed muscle memory" – a haptic, mimetic learning process. Early flutes with incised lines for finger placement served as forms of memory. Across cultures, music explains origins; for the Kuli tribe of Papua New Guinea, music comes from the mooney bird, whose calls are seen as ancestors speaking, and imitating them participates in a cycle of life. In Western culture, a Beethoven symphony like the "Eroica" can evoke the memory of historical events. The discovery of bone flute shards in resonant cave locations suggests an ancient connection between music, acoustics, and architecture. Caves, often dark and mysterious, were likely reserved for rituals, utilizing their natural resonance for flutes, voices, or percussive stalactites. Alternatively, music was created around the hearth, a symbol of stability and cyclical rituals, often performed after events like hunts, blurring the lines between singing, physical motion, and dancing. Unlike the West, which has a single word "music," most cultures traditionally integrated these elements into unified ceremonies. While ancient history is speculative, observing hunter-gatherer societies worldwide reveals a shared core. Australian Aboriginals and Inuit, for example, demonstrate an entanglement with animals, imitating their calls and dances in songs. Darwin noted Aboriginal imitation of kiwis and kangaroos, and Inuit mimic seal cubs to lure them for hunting. This entanglement extends to the landscape, as seen in Aboriginal songlines, where features are tagged with songs, and music facilitates shamanistic spirit journeys through the cosmos to the dreamland of ancestors. Comparing environments, snow in the Arctic, unlike sand, leaves no traces, suggesting Inuit navigation relies more on mental trails than physical footprints. The harshness of snow also fostered communal living in igloos, where music, often filled with laughter and jokes, served as a tool for anger and conflict management, essential for survival in confined spaces. The evolution of Homo sapiens is marked by epochs: hunter-gatherer, sedentary farming, and city-states, each with distinct musical characteristics. Nomadic hunter-gatherers required portable music, primarily voice, light flutes, or small percussion. Their music was often improvisational and playful, avoiding repetition. With farming, settled communities developed music rooted in the cycles of seasons, leading to the creation of repeatable "works" and cyclical structures. As music migrated to towns and cities, instruments could become heavier (bells, gongs) or more delicate (harps, lutes), reflecting permanent settlement. Music's function shifted to serving power, whether of princes or the church, leading to professional musicians and the rise of concerts for leisure classes. Historically, most music was functional and participatory, performed in fields or on boats, reflecting the rhythm of work, as seen in cotton hollers and sea shanties. The distinction between composer and listener is a modern invention. The invention of writing led to musical notation, with the Babylonians and Sumerians creating the first systems. The Hurrian Hymn (1400 BC) is an early example, though undecipherable. The first decipherable complete piece is the Seikilos song (200 AD). Western staff notation, invented by Guido d'Arezzo around 1020 AD, allowed the church to control music across vast distances, ensuring uniformity. This notation later accompanied colonization, as Cortez brought Spanish polyphony to Mexico in 1519, resulting in Aztec musicians performing it by 1530. Staff notation had negative consequences: it froze notes, making music cold and mechanical, and transformed it into an object, creating a division between composer and performer. This contrasts with oral traditions like Indian Carnatic or Hindustani music, where disciples creatively improvise around ideas rather than mechanically reproducing works. Music's universality lies in its fractal nature, mirroring the self-similarity found in the universe, from galaxies to brain cells. Music, as the art of repetition, exhibits similar patterns at different scales (notes in bars, bars in phrases, etc.). This fractal structure is inherent in natural sounds like wind or water ripples, making music inherently natural. This perspective offers a more compelling view of music's relationship with the cosmos than older myths of harmonic proportions. Ironically, humans are not as naturally musical as birds and whales, having evolved from apes, who lack vocal learning and a strong sense of rhythm. Humans are "synthesizers," combining elements like insect rhythms, bird melodies, and ape gestures, reflecting the cosmos's fractal structure, but adding human emotions and the finitude of life. Without human emotions or the awareness of mortality, music wouldn't be what we call "music." The Voyager Golden Record, containing diverse human music, poses a thought experiment: would aliens recognize commonalities? Spitzer believes aliens would observe that humans are "flatlanders," with a narrow perceptual range compared to whales or bats. They might see similarities between human and animal music in its hierarchical structure but would likely identify the "walking meter" as uniquely human, reflecting our bipedal motion, just as whale songs reflect their fluid movement and bird songs their jerky motions. While cultures have different scales and harmonies, a universal "music instinct" exists, an innate capacity to recognize and respond to rhythm and melody. However, cultural exposure shapes this instinct from infancy, influencing rhythmic preferences and tuning systems. A shared vocabulary of basic emotions (sadness, happiness, anger, fear) is processed at different levels of the brain, from the ancient brainstem (reflexes to shocks) to the reptilian basal ganglia (pleasure/displeasure), the mammalian amygdala (emotions), and the modern neocortex (pattern processing). The deeper one delves into the brain, the more universal music's impact. Sapiens carried music wherever they traveled, leading to cultural exchange and naturalization. Spanish counterpoint in Mexico, Puritan hymns in North America, and Christian hymns in Africa (influencing national anthems) are examples. The Silk Road spread instruments like lutes and violins and their melodies across continents. African dances like the Chaconne and Sarabande even influenced Baroque composers like Bach. When music is adopted by another culture, it becomes naturalized; Beethoven, for instance, is considered a Japanese composer by some Japanese, resonating with their sensibility for etiquette and tradition, embodying social togetherness rather than Western individualism. Western music often distinguishes notes from natural sounds, unlike Chinese traditions where music, like the sound of a qin (zither) played under a tree, melds with nature. Ancient Chinese acoustic science, exemplified by the Marquis Yi of Zeng bells (433 BC), was superior to Western acoustics, allowing them to understand and play bells in ways the West could not, exiling them to church towers. Historically, Western music was one among many, often less advanced than cultures in China, India, and the Middle East. Globalization has seen a "takeover" of the planet, partly due to music notation. Now, Western music is being "colonized" by African music (jazz, rock) and K-pop, re-educating the West about sound. The Western misconception of music as a history of works by genius composers, reducing it to an object in a museum, undervalues the participatory nature of music and the innate musicality of most people. This perspective limits performers to reproducing a composer's "divine wisdom," yet the further one moves from the West, the less certainty there is about a composer's original intent. Music profoundly impacts the brain. The link between sound and motion, unique to humans (with rare exceptions), allows babies to respond to rhythms and adults to imitate them through mirror neurons. Emotions are contagious, and music elicits empathetic responses, as seen in toddlers instinctively jumping to orchestral music. Extreme reactions to music, like "chills" or the "sublime," engage brain regions associated with fear, providing a safe way to experience intense emotions, similar to a rollercoaster ride. Music, composed of patterns, can create shocks by frustrating expectations, mimicking real-world threats without actual danger. Musical training rewires the brain, shifting right-brained individuals to left-brained, processing music through the language-processing temporal lobe. Learning an instrument develops discipline, practice skills, teamwork, and focus—highly transferable skills. Music's benefits extend beyond relaxation: it fosters community, reduces stress by lowering cortisol, increases happiness through dopamine, aids memory, and expresses deep emotions and identity more precisely than language. Teenagers often define their identity through music, which also serves as a mode of mindfulness. However, music can also harm. It can be militarized or used to inflict stress if disliked. Clinically, music prescription requires caution; for example, repetitive Baroque music may not suit Alzheimer's patients, and depressing music can reinforce negative emotional states. Doctors need education on appropriate musical interventions. The future of music, despite fears of homogenization due to internet accessibility, will likely remain diverse. Artists' drive for distinctiveness and music's role in expressing identity will prevent a "gray" uniformity. While we are "drowning in music" today, Spitzer predicts two main developments: increased instrumentalization, where music will be precisely prescribed to treat emotional disorders, and greater integration with technology. The internet has already fostered a participatory condition, allowing ordinary people to create and share music. Physical connectivity with technology, like iPhones, creates symbiotic relationships with music consumption, as seen with K-pop. Technology, from bone flutes to computer programs, extends human capacity and imagination. The human role remains crucial in shaping and selecting possibilities offered by machines. Spitzer's boldest prediction is that future music may transcend sound, incorporating tastes, colors, bodily sensations, and frequencies beyond our current hearing spectrum. Just as modern music would be incomprehensible to past generations, we cannot fully imagine the possibilities awaiting us.