On the trail of the musicality of animals
Music seems to be deeply rooted in our biological disposition. This is the conclusion drawn by an international team led by Marisa Hoeschele from the Department of Cognitive Biology at the University of Vienna on the basis of various evolutionary biology studies.
In a review article in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B the team is convinced that it is possible to reconstruct the foundations of human musicality with the help of animal behavioral research. For example, comparative research could be used to investigate whether animal species share certain musical characteristics of human musicality.
Just as there are parallels in the music of different cultures, there are similarities in the sounds and perception between different animal species, according to the Viennese researcher. For example, some songbirds have to learn their songs as young birds - this is a relatively rare ability in the animal world and a prerequisite for new songs to emerge.
Some animal species, like humans, can even assign music to composers or genres. Little research has been done on this so far, but it seems that not only are there many parallels to human musical abilities in the animal world, but also that many animal species perceive components of music in the same way that we do, and that at least some enjoy similar aspects of music as we do.
Original article:
Hoeschele, M., Merchant, H., Kikuchi, Y., Hattori, Y., ten Cate, C. (2015). Searching for the origins of musicality across species. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 370(1664). DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0094
