In the Beginning was the Song
Sunday 9 December 2007 21:35-22:20 (Radio 3)
Ivan Hewett explores the origins and evolution of music.
The urge to make music is rooted deep in human nature. But why that urge arose in the first place is a hotly debated question, which divides the scientific community. Is music a useless by-product of evolution, as renowned cognitive scientist Steven Pinker says? Or is it a vitally important faculty that helped humanity to flourish, as archeologist Steven Mithen and many others believe?
Ivan Hewett goes in search of the answer, drawing on a fascinating body of evidence that ranges from Paleolithic cave settlements and observations of apes making music, to laboratory studies of infants' musical abilities, and a new brain-scanning experiment to map the neural basis of the music faculty.
Click here to see production stills from Ivan Hewett's journey into the evolution of music
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