Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=bt-ytdesc-text-fi-spitzer-aTL4qSLXlGE Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, The mind-bending probability of our existence | Sean B. Carroll: Full Interview ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hOjpxNHgQc Music is at least a million years older than language, yet we still see it solely through the lens of entertainment. Professor Michael Spitzer argues it's something closer to a biological system, one that was shaping the human body long before we had words for what we were feeling. Why does a chord you've never heard before make you want to cry? Why do babies respond to rhythm before they've heard a single song? Why does the same part of your brain that processes mortal danger also process musical beauty? The answers reach back 4 million years, and forward into a future where music may be prescribed like medicine. 0:00 Chapter 1: The history of music 18:00 How civilization changed music 24:52 Chapter 2: The universality of music 37:00 How the west thinks about music all wrong 42:37 Chapter 3: Your brain on music 45:45 Why music gives you goosebumps 00:52:46 Chapter 4: The future of music Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/music-human-body/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ►Listen to Big Think Interviews on Spotify Insights from the world's biggest thinkers, now as a podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/7KRYoRD1NdF2aoQcBMyPlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Michael Spitzer: Michael Spitzer is the author of The Musical Human and professor of music at the University of Liverpool, where he leads the department’s work on classical music. A music theorist and musicologist, he is an authority on Beethoven, with interests in aesthetics and critical theory, cognitive metaphor, and music and affect. He organized the International Conferences on Music and Emotion and the International Conference on Analyzing Popular Music and currently chairs the editorial board of Music Analysis Journal.
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You can't understand music or voice unless you are an overtone singer. Pronunciation of vowels keeps the voice in tune.
5:28 Is floating not movement? I'm done.
Dude, their is nothing more rhythmic then the clomping hoofs of a horse or zebra or the delicate tapping of an antelope. Fascinating subject and some interesting observations laced with complete speculation stated as fact.
You must be wrong about strings and farming. People had bows and arrows before farming (and before bows and arrows we had slings) You don't have to be a farmer to use animal sinew.
20:00 that's actually the beauty of the bard on a ship... Someone completely useless to attack or defend the very safety they live in, but have the type of voice to boost morale and overall aptitude of the entire ship 😂😂😂
Music is not sound - sound is the vehicle - music is not the notes on a page - Visual art is not expereicend by the eye any more than music is experienced by the ear - ... your mind's eye and your mind's ear - the primordial form under the appearance... Plato concluded the number 27 corresponded to "the soul of the world" after reviewing Pythagoras lab reports on his experiments 500 years before Plato... 3x3x3. 9x3 What do you think plato was referring to in music ? Have you found this number recuring in music? What I find is universal is the quarter note Occidental, Oriental, African, and Mid East music all use it even though their tonality is varies widely ... what have you found?
Depression isnt an emotional disorder. It is your psyche healing itself and deepening your cup. So much music came to us via depression - and processing grief and rage turned inward instead of processed and expressed...
After 16 years of therapy failed to reduce my OCD from infant trauma - I used music - heavy metal - and began composing - Music is a non dangerous way to deal with horrifying panic - little by little - to morph the rage into beauty and soothing warmth - 30 years later - I am very fuctional - my life is my bliss - creating original music and videoizing them. I still weep when I compose and listen - and it still feels numinous....
Humans invented all the Fine Arts except music - music was discovered... it is a naturally occurring phenomena. I was composing a song on my acoustic guitar - so I would play a phrase - then stop pause - then refine the theme and try again - I would do this for hours . AS I was sitting in my living room with the door open - I noticed birds singing a short phrase - during my pause - then stopping as I played there next version of my phrase. I went outside, nearer the birds I could not see, and tested to if this was call and response with the birds. I had a conversation with these birds for about 20 minutes - then they left - I was paying more attention to the call and response - than to refining the theme toward more beauty - birds dont want chit-chat - they want authentic soul?
Might you be projecting your own lens - aesthetic sensibilities - on to Homo Ergaster? Maybe he designed the tool because he needed it to eat and make things with wood? Which theory has more gravity? Your aesthetic sensibilities are what you use daily to earn money and create your own art - so they are important to you. (As mine are to me. )
What an absolutely fascinating, informative, and wonderful presentation.
Tune your guitar to whatever frequency you want to.
You couldn't have released this at a better time, about a month ago I watched the documentary from 2010 "My Music Brain" analyzing the brain while listening to and performing music. Then last week I listened to Startalk "scientists discuss music and the origins of language" with Niel Degrass Tyson. And now this!
Thanks!
Listening to music activates multiple parts of the brain at once — including memory, emotions, and focus. Music is more powerful than we realize.
Any musician in the comments ever heard of Watson Beat?
This is way more than the title indicated. why wasn't the title the history of music, instead of something you don't talk about until the end of a one hour video?
I can't work anywhere where country music is played. Makes me sick and increases my stress level exponentially.
He said, “tap that axe.”