Music and the evolution of human brain function

Abstract

Multidisciplinary research during the last three decades has led to notable progress in the understanding of the relationships between aspects of music common to all cultures and characteristic features of acoustical information-processing in the human brain. Increasing evidence of a parallelism between many structural aspects of music and human language points to a common, perhaps even simultaneous origin of music and language during the early phase of human brain evolution. And robust arguments are emerging about the neural mechanism of musical emotions and the possible origin of the human drive to listen to music, make music and compose music. In short, answers to the questions of why did music develop in the early days of human evolution and why is there music still now may be around the corner. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Vienna.