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Where they sing solo: Accounting for cross-cultural variation in collective music-making in theories of music evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Aniruddh D. Patel
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA02445, [email protected]; https://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/people/patel/ Program in Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Toronto, ONMG5 1M1, Canada
Chris von Rueden
Affiliation:
Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA23173, [email protected]; https://sites.google.com/site/chrisvonrueden/home

Abstract

Collective, synchronous music-making is far from ubiquitous across traditional, small-scale societies. We describe societies that lack collective music and offer hypotheses to help explain this cultural variation. Without identifying the factors that explain variation in collective music-making across these societies, theories of music evolution based on social bonding (Savage et al.) or coalition signaling (Mehr et al.) remain incomplete.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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