Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T18:22:40.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Music and dance are two parallel routes for creating social cohesion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Steven Brown*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, OntarioL8S 4K1, Canada. [email protected]; neuroarts.org

Abstract

Savage et al. do an excellent job of making the case for social bonding in general, but do a less good job of distinguishing the manners by which dance and music achieve this. It is important to see dance and music as two parallel and interactive mechanisms that employ the “group body” and “group voice,” respectively, in engendering social cohesion.

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arom, S., & Khalfa, J. (1998). Une raison en acte: Pensée formelle et systématique musicale dans les sociétés de tradition orale. Revue de Musicologie, 84, 517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, A. V., Richerson, P. J., & McElreath, R. (2009). Culture rather than genes provides greater scope for the evolution of large-scale human prosociality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106, 1767117674. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0903232106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blacking, J. (1974). How musical is man? University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1985). Culture and the evolutionary process. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Brown, S. (2000). Evolutionary models of music: From sexual selection to group selection. In Tonneau, F. & Thompson, N. S. (Eds.), Perspectives in ethology. 13: Behavior, evolution and culture (pp. 231281). Plenum Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, S., & Parsons, L. M. (2008). The neuroscience of dance. Scientific American, 299, 3237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Dugatkin, L. A., & Reeve, H. K. (1994). Behavioral ecology and the levels of selection: Dissolving the group selection controversy. Advances in the Study of Behavior, 23, 101133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordania, J. (2006). Who asked the first question? The origins of human choral singing, intelligence, language and speech. Logos.Google Scholar
Lomax, A. (1968). Folk song style and culture. American Association for the Advancement of Science.Google Scholar
Merriam, A. P. (1964). The anthropology of music. Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, G. F. (2000). Evolution of human music through sexual selection. In Wallin, N. L., Merker, B. & Brown, S. (Eds.), The origins of music (pp. 329360). MIT Press.Google Scholar
Prum, R. O. (2012). Aesthetic evolution by mate choice: Darwin's really dangerous idea. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367, 22532265. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0285.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Radcliffe-Brown, A. (1922). The Andaman islanders: A study in social anthropology. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smaldino, P. E. (2014). The cultural evolution of emergent group-level traits. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37, 243295. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X13001544.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sober, E., & Wilson, D. S. (1998). Unto others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wallin, N., Merker, B., & Brown, S. (Eds.). (2000). The origins of music. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. S., & Wilson, E. O. (2007). Rethinking the theoretical foundation of sociobiology. Quarterly Review of Biology, 82, 327348. https://doi.org/10.1086/703580.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, E. O. (2012). The social conquest of the earth. Liveright Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar