40,000 years of music explained in 8 minutes | Michael Spitzer

The history of music from bone flutes to Beyoncé.
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The evolution of music over millennia is tied to human civilization.
For example, hunter-gatherers, who were very mobile, had to have small, light instruments to carry with them. Once we settled into bigger cities, larger instruments could be built.
Today, music is as accessible as running water. But if you were born in Beethoven's time, you would be lucky to hear two symphonies in your lifetime.
Read the video transcript ► bigthink.com/series/the-big-t...
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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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Read more of our stories on the science and history of music:
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Why does music numb physical pain? Scientists uncover clues.
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Why Arthur Schopenhauer thought music was the greatest of all art forms
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[@bigthink]

What do you think the future of music will be like?

[@chefmagneto]

Certainly not promising. There are a few that are trying to save music, but it very little comparatively. Like movies and TV, music is currently on a dark, greed filled path that won’t let up and will control you.

[@mitchellperilla739]

I imagine a full sensory experience - Visuals in synch with music, small food offerings to pair with different pieces, vibratory jackets that allow one to feel the timbre of each instrument...Many beautiful possibilities:)

[@03Venture]

@@chefmagneto I was going to write down some of my thoughts about the future of Music but you have said it infinitely better than I possibly could. Thanks.

[@chefmagneto]

@@03Venture it’s a sad state.

[@Tht1Gy]

Ask the Krell. 😉 (Mostly Theremin music. Lol)

[@danielabetts]

A missing element: music and it’s evolution is inextricably tied to dancing. The rhythms have been honed through millennia to make us move and sing. Not just listen.

[@SAMUELVISCOSI]

Great point.

[@cypressbartlett9083]

@@dickrichard626 Waltz (3/4), Irish dance (6/8, 9/8), Bulgarian dance (9/8).

[@Iron-Bridge]

@@cypressbartlett9083 He wrote ' almost all MAINSTREAM MUSIC '. Yeah, Irish waltz and Bulgarian dances are really ubiquitous mainstream dances huh? 🤣🤣

[@edgarforteamoles3173]

@Iron Bridge we have a crazy ethnocentric view of music. The world music goes well beyond mainstream American record labels. Each country has their own "mainstream" that doesn't necessarily has to be pop culture. Flamenco "palos" are crazy complicated and intricate, same with indian ragas or cuban tonadas, African dances are very syncopated and lots of ternary rhythms.

[@hoodhippychick]

This is the Eurocentric perspective.

[@art-ificialblon-die7013]

As another commenter pointed out, music is linked with dancing, which further corroborates with the notion that music is an activity, rather than an object. However, just as music became objectified with the advent and progression of modernity, the element of dance has seen diminishing prominence. Music has become more isolated and solidified. And this parallels the development of human societies, from nomadic people to permanent establishments. In my perspective, modernity was the culmination of the quest for man for claim permanence over everything. But the modernist project failed, and we’ve been living in postmodern times. And an era of experimentation and technological developments released music from a static shell towards a dynamic intercourse of sounds.

[@kalebrosenberg8294]

that's why I always loved mosh-pits at harcore/punkrock shows. It always has an archaic feel to it and feels really intuitive.

[@carlogaytan7010]

I was about to disagree because lots of people get goosebumps when they listen to music without dancing it. But, then I realized this is just a release of adrenaline meant for ou to move around.

[@RedPearlPrincess10]

I feel with this. Sometimes you'll come across a street musician and get the urge to stop and dance, but since I never learned to dance "well", I would never dare, and no one else does either, everyone just stops to simply listen if they stop at all. Kind of sad, because I'd LOVE to be able to just... start jumping or wiggling around in public when there's music playing without it being embarrassing or deemed as strange.

[@peterhaslund]

Nah, dancing is modernity itself. Jazz means sex. Disco means glittering ball of reflected light. It's all dirty, dude. Get off the high horse before you strain that thing you call a brain

[@RichRobinson]

Funny thing is that I love music more than anything in the world, I write and work on music for a living. I’m not much a “dancer”. Not the spectacle of it anyways. I move around my kitchen some, but that’s hardly dancing! 😂

[@citlalli9410]

I never regret clicking on the videos of this channel.

[@bigthink]

Glad to hear, thank you so much!

[@justlearncom]

I thought Big Think would mention AI for the future of music. AI will create the majority of music soon

[@justlearncom]

@@heartonfire583 Yeah! The future is interesting!

[@ChristopherOrth]

Most people think that the internet has allowed us to make a huge modern change in how we experience and share music. But it's really moving us closer back to how music was all along. The "weird" period in musical history are the last several decades of commercialized music. So great to see this author sharing bigger ideas about music and humanity!

[@roachmancam9012]

Music can make my 83 yr old mother with dementia/alzheimers go from completely unresponsive with her head down to dancing, playing air guitar ,and even singing word for word if its certain songs.its unbelievable. She needs assistance to stand and walk but she can do the twist without anyone holding her hand for atleast 30 seconds before her legs get tired lol.. music is medicine.

[@r0conscious]

Amazing how deeply we're connect to music, thanks for sharing

[@patriciajrs46]

Thank you. This is important.

[@JamesVibe]

"There is no such thing as old music.....there is only good music and the other kind." - Duke Ellington

[@UnblestMATT]

Hunter-gatherer societies have more leisure time than in industrialized societies. It was often spent sitting around, talking, singing, dancing, etc. Many indigenous dance and music routines are performed by skilled performers and enjoyed by crowds. I think it is inaccurate to map the evolution of music with the advent of concerts coming about in industrialized societies with social hierarchies as prerequisites.

[@jordanoneill7052]

He literally didn't say that though. He talked about indigenous and hunter gatherer people using music as an activity before industrialisation (and agriculture). In an industrialised society music concerts were a luxury for the wealthy, but he never claimed the wealthy post industrialists invented music performance in the first place.

[@SortOfEggish]

Where's your book?

[@rienavoir8250]

I think what he was implying is that in indigenous cultures music is a participatory thing , where as in the modern concert setting it's more of a consuming of music, not a form of co-creation.

[@williamg780]

I would disagree that music notation turns music into a mechanical process. I'm not a professional violinist, only played in high school and had an extremely good orchestra director. And engaging in classical music as a listener, being able to appreciate it more with my experience with the violin, there is a solid argument to be made that there are litanies of interpretation available for the musician, as well as the listener. Maybe I didn't understand his argument but I think music notation has been a great advancement. It's extremely intimate: to be able to materially and audibly produce what was only in the mind of, say, a deaf composer hundreds of years ago is deeply fascinating to me and I don't think should be discarded or downplayed in the slightest. Thought provoking video as always, BT

[@TheRustyLM]

Yes. A bit jarring to hear this presenter woe the invention of notation. Then celebrate the “advancement” of today’s computer music technology. 🙄

[@ericclark1958]

I'm not certain that he thinks that all aspects of musical notation are bad, but he is being honest and admitting that there are some aspects of what it does that are less than desirable. This doesn't have to be a zero sum thing. Notation can have both good and bad effects. I think that for most of us who grew up swimming in the water of western musical culture, we may have been oblivious to the negatives. The presenter is merely letting us know that it is a mixed bag.

[@undertakr]

I can see both sides. I have tremendous respect for my favorite classical composers... I feel like the notations of their compositions are a gift from beyond, a free gift that is endlessly giving. I think what this speaker is emphasizing is that in the face of humanity's relationship with music as a whole, notation is actually a side-path, and not the main road. I know that as a piano player I was raised to think that music notation and classical piano composers were the center of the musical universe, and only recently have I come to understand that although much of what I know is truly beautiful, it's really just a side-show in humanity's relationship with music. Most humans in human history have had a participatory relationship with music with no need for expertise, and we would be enriched to have that return; there's room for both, for the expert musicians and composers and the everyday singers-to-their-children or nursery rhymes and amateurs sharing tunes on the internet.

[@resiknoiro7506]

For me, mechanical-process-music may even be the most enjoyable type of music. Using words like "mechanical" or "static" make it sound cold and emotionless, but even precisely planned out harmonies and melodies can be very emotional.

[@aresdesiderata8959]

@@ericclark1958 This guy literally took a dump on all of music history and notation and claimed that primitive disposable wooden instruments, and Beyoncé, are the future of music. I just cant with these hippy dippy new age liberals. Like, show some respect, notation is an INSANE invention and he should have more respect for it. Its like trying to talk trash about the written word, and the great works of literature. Its very surprising to me that, this video not only seemingly gets a pass in the music industry, but that I cant seem to find any REAL studies of music history, music theory, and classical music ideas. Its all nonsense.

[@PcGamerHero]

That's a rather cynical view on music notation. As other pointed out, notation existed way before the middle ages. Scales were a subject of study for the Pythagoreans Greek, and rhytmic notations existed in ancient Egypt. Secondly, they were not invented as a tool for curch control (again, a very cynical view of history) but as a solution for a common problem - if I have some sweet music in mind, how do I teach other how to play it without having to show them directly. This can be very useful when trying to teach a large group of players, and before amps, having a large group of musical performers was the best way to play louder.

[@drummerkrisp]

Well dude clearly was pushing an anti church, anti god, anti patriarchy, narrative. Some how music has to become political now.

[@the_northface]

I was wondering too, "how come notations only started in medieval Europe?" And for the purpose of "church control" seems a bit suspicious

[@Wasthere73]

I highly disagree with the idea that notation is easier. Id suggest you try learning an instrument through oral, listening, and playing methods rather than looking at sheet music. It is much more intuitive and easier to learn it like that. Its a shame its not a popular way to learn.

[@PcGamerHero]

I never made such a claim. I said that notation isn't a conspiracy by the church to kill smooth jazz. They are a practical tool. I'm myself a musician, and like you, I prefer to go with my intuition when I write music or perform solos. But when I need to communicate those ideas with other musicians, having a common understanding of music theory is very useful, and notation is simply a common language to write down those ideas. Regarding what is more easy to learn, this is a different and unrelated discussion, but my two cents on it is that it's a matter of preference. @@Wasthere73

[@fretnesbutke3233]

Remember, budding music students - and the professor is touching on this,the notation is the script that the actor must breathe life into. Notation is the map,but the sound is the actual territory. Musicians who can move hearts have a superpower that few other activities can match,the power to unify us.

[@grandtheftmanualv945]

I always felt that of all the expressive arts, music is the most direct and instant way to affect how someone feels. I believe it's the most expressive a human can be, when singing or playing an instrument with skill and from the soul.

[@shawbrothers18]

Yeahhh

[@StanleyGrill]

This was commentary from someone who seems to actually hate written music. Sort of like saying the invention of the alphabet was just a mechanism of control as opposed to a brilliant means to share and preserve ideas.

[@grandtheftmanualv945]

I understand the point made and see it's validity. Massively paraphrasing and misquoting Opera legend Monserrat Caballé, she said that working with Freddie Mercury had a strange 'mirror effect' going on, where Freddie was trying to feel closer the the world of classical and opera, which he always had loved, and trying to write and sound more like the 'true professionals', while at the same time, Ms. Caballé said she learned so much about freedom of expression while singing. That while she felt able to sing her arias and pieces with some level of personal expression, she said that the Opera and classical world's are quite rigid (and flow is often imposed by the conductor anyway) and working with Freddie allowed her to sing in a free, but still perfectly Operatic way. She even wrote lyrics for one of the songs, which I believe may have been her first!?!

[@samsondouglas3980]

I took music through school studied it etc. Hated writing music but loved playing it (violin) and listening to it. Just like different genres of music is subjective they way people view it is subjective as well. Also I think it is more of a history lesson than anything

[@saisanz419]

Hate seems like a strong sentiment to infer. They are not mutually exclusive, at all! Many of the beautiful forms of expression that humans use to share ideas have some pretty crass origins.

[@StanleyGrill]

@@moiome I’m not sure your analogy to language is apt, or if your conclusion is demonstrably true. Whether or not it is, it’s contrary to my personal experience. Learning to play fluently came hand in hand with learning to read music. Starting piano at age six, that was a good age when I was both physically capable of the coordination necessary for the piano and the perfect age to learn to read. If I put off reading for years, it would have been too late to ever become the fluent sight reader I am.

[@StanleyGrill]

@@moiome I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree about this topic. After studying music for the past 60+ years and teaching music for quite a few along the way, except for the extraordinarily gifted among us, the only way to gain skills is to teach everything. Skill in music is pattern recognition absorbed into your body. To do that, you have learn patterns - rhythmic patterns, scales, chords, inversions, etc., etc. The longer you wait, like learning other languages, the more difficult that becomes to absorb thoroughly and the opportunity for deep learning is missed. To fail to teach the craft, in all of its aspects, is teaching malpractice. I often run into the thought that learning the craft somehow inhibits creativity. It's the opposite. It simply provides more tools to be creative with.

[@herrfair545]

I love this episode! - The musical alphabet was expanded as a result of the dissolution of the arts and the emancipation of noise by the Futurists (Russolo), and the objectification of sound and noise, as established by musique concrète (Schaeffer), made such wonderful phenomena as sound-art possible in the first place. It's fine the way it is. Music is also movement and characterized by doing, but not rigidly and caught in a time before technology. On the contrary, technology can extract it from space-time. It moves with the times, even if some of our professors want to avoid admitting it.

[@citizen_of_earth_]

I ❤️ the new style of BIG THINK! The editing and backgrounds. Thank you!

[@sebastianpenamante8080]

What background music is in the first second of this video?

[@bilalkorir2070]

Beautiful post, I loved it, thank you :)

[@user-mu7lg4rc2f]

I want a whole course like this. Interesting content!

[@lovethatagave]

What a fantastic presentation - thank you!

[@WmRike]

I have news for this guy: hunter-gatherers were just as mentally fixed on the "circle of the seasons" as farmers were.

[@jonnylumberjack6223]

Yes indeed. We all were, from the beginnings of us, to very, very recently.

[@CastleKingside]

Wonderful information. Thank you.

[@grandtheftmanualv945]

I don't know about the future of music (we need to sort out today's music first!) but I want to thank you for this video. I'm a 'musician' - that is to say I studied violin for four years as a child then some years later began teaching myself guitar. I have learned to read music 4 separate times, and forgotten each time. Academically I am 'not good enough' to learn music to an accepted professional level and I have known this all my life but always felt sort of 'lesser' for it, excluded if you like. My own attitude has always been that music should not even be such a strict and almost regimented device, that pure expression should be the aim - what's going on right now in this moment? is the question music should be asking. So when I take my guitar out onto the street and perform hit songs written by legendary artists, I am singing their song without drastically altering it, but I still play it my way. Sometimes I have people ask me why I don't play the guitar the same way as the original and I always say it's because I'm playing the song now, not the guy who you know played it, and often I see a kind of bewilderment wash over at this lack of understanding of music! My thanks to you are centered around the fact that as a Professor of Music, you have explained the role and the notion of music in a way that I always felt myself, even though I felt I was alone in that. I was always going to continue on my own path anyway, but somehow you have added a support beam for the ever fluctuating state of my confidence levels!

[@bethduffus4598]

Fascinating video. Thank you.

[@gonzadelga]

Great video, it tough me so much in so little time. Music is part of our everyday day lives and so wonderful to understand its history and where it will go.

[@rienavoir8250]

I think I see what he means when he speaks about notation being a mean of control I'm a self taught musician and honestly I'm happy I never had music notation forced upon me, cause a lot of classically trained musicians can't improvise. So in a sense they've lost the ability to channel their own creativity and end up having to imitate another's. I do enjoy classical music though and I'm hapoy It's around, but i definitely feel that music is meant to be felt and not just read. I'm happy I can play with my eyes closed, as it takes me into a trance like state. That doesn't mean I don't understand musical theory or apply it, it's actually something I love learning about , and it helps tremendously in understanding where to go and how to get there when I'm playing.

[@storyfrontierdrive1433]

Well said

[@jaschh]

Not being able to improvise is not tied to reading music in my opinion. It's because classical music doesn't put emphasis on improvisation. A lot of great improvisors can read music, and it doesn't make them less creative. Personally i see no downside to notation. You can choose to ignore notation if you want to be more feel based, but it's a great tool for being able to recreate music, and was the only way to be able to write down and communicate more complex musical ideas to other musicians before the invention of recorded music. And this is all coming from a musician, who can't read music.

[@rienavoir8250]

@@jaschh I agree, I've been learning notation for the past year, and it's a great tool to have!

[@elias7748]

If you can’t remember the music you play if you don’t have your sheet music, quit. Sheet music is simply to learn the music and its intents. It’s far superior to any other writing forms that I am aware of. Especially synthesia.

[@rami-succar7356]

pianist of 8 years here, you'll be even more happy when you can fluently read notation. I am classically trained, and i improvise well. In fact, the best jazz players are classically trained. We don't play the notes like a computer does with a MIDI file, we know what emotions are and know how to convey them with our instruments. you can't feel music that you don't know exists, you NEED notation. we can play with our eyes closed, it's pretty easy to sight memorize once you practice. reading sheet music will help you understand how "events" in a piece relate to eachother even better than theory alone. you being self taught says a lot. i would have guessed you were even had you not mentioned it. the points you're trying to make are really really weak. you're making it sound like notation is an algorithm to follow while it really just is a way to share music. just like the alphabet.

[@ewanllewelyn9443]

I wonder what the presenter’s comments would be about reading and writing in general. Has the ‘notation’ of the spoken word been a negative development for humanity? It has been fashionable for some time to dismiss music notation as something negative that hinders the creative process. Instead I propose that reading and writing has allowed humans to communicate much more complex ideas than without. It is no coincidence that music in Europe took off after the invention of notation. The last thousand years of music has seen a rapid increase in complexity that just would not be possible without a system to organise huge amounts of information. It is only in the modern era that music notation has come to be taught in a very dry way that is disconnected from sound and practice. This has given rise to a culture even among music academics to see their own greatest tool as something that is beyond the average person. Today it is expected that every child should learn to read and write. This gives autonomy and the chance to work with complex ideas. Personally I wish that musicians and teachers would take music notation, and the ways in which we teach it, more seriously. In my view, we need to start with challenging the idea that notation is in conflict with an aural approach. The two are actually complementary and should be developed together. Reading can be developed more easily once the aural skills are in place rather than trying to teach the aural from notation as is so often done. Let’s not forget too that history is only possible with notation/writing.

[@jonathanwingmusic]

I wholeheartedly agree, as I was completely jarred by this point he made in an otherwise nice mini-doc. He basically says that staff notation was a means of "control" by the church/empire and had bad consequences, which took the "note away from the voice" as he put it, due to the fixed precision of notes on the page. This doesn't make much sense, considering that before recorded sound, there was no other way of communicating and sharing musical ideas beyond your own sphere of space and time - this enabled music to transcend and be shared with distant people and distant generations; which in turn, it enabled future generations to learn from and build upon with new ideas. Much like the written word, it was a means of communicating ideas and learning which only served to enhance culture and humanity, and just as you said, gave rapid birth to new developments. To his point that it is precise, cold, and mechanical, I see what he's going after at a cursory glance, but it really depends on the composer and context of music. Obviously many composers of various eras didn't record and fix every direction, and in fact encouraged interpretation through expressive markings such as dolce, con amore, espressivo, pesante, tempo rubato... all of which allow players at any point in history insert themselves and find their own interpretation in the music - to me that doesn't "take the note away from the voice," but rather "gives the note" to the voice - enabling a kid 300 years later to re-discover themselves in the music, much like reading an old novel or play. What a beautiful thing that would have never been otherwise possible without writing it all down. And also I couldn't think of something further from "cold and mechanical." He goes on to praise modern technology as the solution, but one could easily argue piano roll notation inside of a DAW is more cold and mechanical, especially if quantized to a grid. You can't ask the computer to play tempo rubato or con amore because those are based in human emotions and individual interpretations, and while A.I. could be programmed to understand what that might sound like, it will never know how to play something with love. Anyway, just meaning to say I agree that notation has been dismissed more and more these days which is strange, it would be like dismissing novels since now we have movies and audiobooks - so no need for reading and writing because it's too "cold and mechanical," which would be nonsense. I would love to see a revival of interest in notation which sees it for what it truly is, that it's not just a page of rules, but rather a way to understand history, culture, and ourselves.

[@janinem5196]

Utterly fascinating! Well done.

[@wellbodisalone]

Great presentation! 💯

[@lancebrown4509]

The simplification of the evolution of music from essentially the early medieval period to the classical period in this video makes it seem like the development of music notation and the roles of a composer or performer are somehow a bad thing. Plato would have happy with the classical sense of music. To suggest that the intellectual development of music is somehow a bad thing is an incredibly close-minded take. It's sort of like saying that the developments in western philosophy or science over 1000+ years Were actually a bad thing and actually made science and philosophy worse today. Besides that this video oversimplified the actual history of music in favor of filling its run time with useless rhetoric about "the future of music" that argues that 'technology' is the solution to our "problems" or the hindrances of historical music practice and technique.

[@03Venture]

Brilliantly presented. Many thanks.

[@storypaths6]

facinating, this parallel of the huge changes brought by written music, parallelling those of the written word.

[@roichiman]

Beautiful video. I need to read that book

[@crimsontigers]

Outstanding video, thank you!

[@CAM-fq8lv]

So interesting, especially about the invention of notation. Great guest speaker.

[@MindPrism_techno]

7:09 Michael, you say "Music isn't an object. It's an activity". I'd be inclined to think music is both an an activity and an object. It's both a process and a result, just as is art or design.

[@Adrian-wd4rn]

Art and design have no result. As a designer, whatever I design is continuously evolving and changing.

[@MindPrism_techno]

​@@Adrian-wd4rn They certainly do have a result. What you deliver to the client is the result. For example, the Mona Lisa is a result, it's not evolving.

[@Adrian-wd4rn]

​@@MindPrism_techno It's not evolving because the artist died. He painted the mona lisa several times, there's many layers where he made constant changes. (it took him 16 years to complete). I'm an industrial designer, we don't get to a "result", if we did, then there wouldn't be changes to the next iteration of products. What we deliver to the clients is where we left it due to time constraints. The next iteration picks up where we left off.

[@MindPrism_techno]

​@@Adrian-wd4rn That's not quite right. It stopped evolving when Leonardo sold it to Francesco del Giocondo, his client. It never evolved after that. I am a designer too. The "result" is your final artefact or solution you deliver to your client. It's the outcome. It is the product. You may then iterate the product after its been shipped but that is iterating upon the shipped result. Even then, many products don't evolve after they are discontinued.

[@jahanshahjavid7874]

Excellent. I learned a lot. Thank you.

[@mannyespinola9228]

Thank you for this video

[@pongop]

Excellent and surprising documentary about the history and future of music!

[@galahadthreepwood9394]

I think notation has done a great deal of good. Just as writing language has.

[@levmoses742]

That was very good! Thank you 😀

[@doom-driveneap4569]

This just blew my mind. I am so grateful, and honored, to live in this era. One of my favorite videos Big Think!

[@francescozani9488]

Wow, one of the best eight minutes I've ever spent watching YT

[@brianeddy41]

I loved this!!

[@Mkaybb]

This is an excellent video.

[@madmaxthrax2964]

Very interesting; another win for BigThink

[@wedgeman8910]

every artist or aspiring ones should listen to this

[@odalismikaelle]

loved.

[@kailash4799]

This person seems to be thinking in a very western perspective with little to no clue on how music actually happened in rest of the world. Like what a load of BS almost. He seems to have glossed over the entire subject of music-prayer-religion. Like the religion has been such a major part of culture for people in their story telling, leisure, and more importantly Ceremonies. Music is ever present in all this and ofcourse shapes evolution of music too. Temples and religious holidays have been such a major source of Concert like programs of music and celebration. And finally, his whole point of music notation being bad because it causes us to think music should be precise when it isn't, ... That's total BS. The entire difference between folk music and Classical music is how precise you can record the notes and play it with same precision of notes and pitch. Folk music is predominantly not bothered with pitch perfection or tone or stuff. Western classical music, North indian Hindustani, and Carnatic are three really popular classical music genre. They are classical precisely for the reason of their deep understanding of music theory which requires precision in pitch and notes. Thinking that is not what musical notes are supposed to do is dumb at best.

[@gon9684]

The role of religion is the same in the west, absolutely crucial and fundamental up to a certain point in history

[@FoxboroPiper]

Agreed. There are plenty of examples of music as a fine art outside of the tradition of staff notation.

[@jasonweaver3629]

Interesting talk, thank you.

[@robertronning7016]

Music is everything it will reach your soul

[@sarrafgsarraf]

Beautifully exlained. 👏

[@elastrorey5722]

Humans are driven by rhythm, by sounds all around us. You can sing or twist some strings on a guitar in a public space, and you will amass a crowd of spectators in a matter of minutes. We feel, we cry, we love, we release some steam, we emote - all because of music. Music is ecstasy. Music is life itself and its most beautiful facets

[@mpv9866]

Also... Vibrations 📳

[@Mr.TeETH78]

Yes!

[@DmezzoPreritDube314]

Professor, you are too good🙌🏼

[@sassulusmagnus]

It's very interesting, although he does make certain conceptual leaps which I hope are better explained in his book. For instance, the idea that the purpose of the invention of music notation was that it be used to exert control seems a bit of a stretch. It's essentially a recording medium, invented before the existence of audio recording technology, in which sound is encoded into visual symbols. If others didn't also learn to read and write this symbolic language it would have been much more difficult for people to share musical ideas across distance, culture and time.

[@ApAcVideoWatcher]

This was most enjoyable. I'd welcome more episodes with him. 🦋

[@halimsatria7443]

adrian berengeur red dress in the opening is fantastic!

[@posthocprior]

That was wonderful.

[@BlackBearSixTV]

Well done, Sir.

[@top115]

I think musik in the future will further help to "align" people. I mean it in a good way. For me its heavily underestimated what good medium it is to transfer ideas, feelings... I think music has an important role in the future to bring us together which is so important in this time when everything feels divided.

[@MictheEagle]

5:23 I will go with Saint Yared of Ethiopia (25 April 505 - 20 May 571), more than 1500 yrs ago, to be the first composer who came up with musical notation. Saw them and they're simply beautiful. Not boring at all. Lol You should have checked.

[@ValentinEni]

The music at the end of the video is Song: Voyage Album: Beyond Artist: ANBR - Adrián Berenguer

[@Dan_Zee]

Thank you very much!

[@mrJessaroo12]

I think its up to the musician/s to read the staff sheet music interpret it and bring it back to life. there are many who succeed and we can enjoy lovely moving music to this day 😊

[@Wizardboz]

Love this video

[@peterdollins3610]

The great geniuses & the life of music in the human race are interactions & complimentary. This is not Big Think. It is Small Think.

[@Tht1Gy]

Thank you.

[@gielenoneill]

Fantastic!

[@user-dm8zp9ru8h]

Damn this is actually very interesting. It makes me see music from a different perspective that I've never even considered nor cared of.

[@99ll3llbbb]

Great Video:) whats the song of the chants starting at 5:20?

[@resiknoiro7506]

Honestly, i don't get the negativity towards staff notation. In my (maybe a bit naive) opinion, it may even be a good thing, that music became more static and objectified. Or at the very least, it's not entirely bad; i could imagine that staff notation and music becoming more static allowed music to reach new levels of harmonic and melodic complexity, as every note and every chord could be precisely planned out to fit just right. Also, I don't mind the increased differentiation between the composer and the listener, because it gives the composer (who has more musical knowledge than the listener) more freedom and control to realize his/her vision.

[@importantname]

i enjoy listening to music, almost all kinds of music, but i have zero musical ability. Making me very glad that most other people can produce it.

[@d.l.loonabide9981]

The listener is at least as important as the performer. So if you are listening, your assertion that you have no musical ability is not true.

[@d.l.loonabide9981]

Also, musical ability is based on skill. Skills are learned behaviors. Humans of normal intelligence are quite capable of acquiring these skills. It takes time and effort but is not unattainable.

[@wbworkout]

Brilliant!

[@Mo_2077]

What a beautiful video

[@YouGuessIGuess]

Widespread musical notation was more good than bad. For one thing, it would have been much harder for the Beethovens and Mozarts of the world to learn from previous generations of musicians because all of those works could very easily have been lost to time. As the author himself pointed out, most people only saw one or two symphonies in their lives. Without easily available sheet music, they would likely have never been able to hear or play for themselves the great works of others. His point about musical notation being an element of control is interesting, but it's trivial compared to the levers of military, economic, and religious power. All of the injustices of history would still have happened without the widespread existence of written music.

[@thomaslaubli1886]

Certain forms of music can only be notated if you think of polyphony, sophisticated harmonies or combinations of timbres that can never be realized when improvising. It is therefore strange how the author of the video pits composition against ritual music-making.

[@alexmooney7665]

I’d like to hear more about that in depth

[@ninamartin1084]

This man has in his concise and erudite summed up exactly what I think about music (also 'art).

[@Abcflc]

I can’t believe this man is a professor who is talking about music this way. Singers and musicians require years of training and there are actual techniques passed through generations. The discipline and effort required is similar to that of athletes. Seeing music as an object and then talking about imperialism (?) what is he on?

[@grandtheftmanualv945]

But music comes on many many levels, which is the general point on offer here. If a two year old baby is singing to themselves while bashing a plastic brick repeatedly against the floor, that counts as musical expression! No, it probably wouldn't sell a no.1 single, or be requested on sheet music for 400 years onward, but it's every bit as valid musically as Beethoven's 5th. To fit in at the highest levels (socially, professionally etc.) you do indeed have to train hard and work hard and also have to meet expectations, but there is a little music in all of us and in some of us it's always brewing inside, whether we can express it or not. Music is like air, not like water. Air is everywhere and is free while water must be channeled and couped up.

[@theepicosityofpizza]

yeah this vid is basically total crap imo lmao

[@catparka7698]

Singers and musicians requiring years of training is exceptional, as elite athletic activity is exceptional. But most athletic activity is performed by non-elite participants, and so it is with singing and tooling around with instruments - which is still 'music'.

[@cloudyriver]

Seeing music as a sport discipline rather than a means of human expression? What are you on?

[@catparka7698]

@@cloudyriver Well, having spent my life doing both, I'm on the performance requirements for both and how well they match. Nothing novel in that thesis. Edit - and, incidentally, sport is very much a forum of human expression, as music is an intensely physical activity - and both require analysis and comprehension of their requirements in order to perform at anything beyond the most rudimentary level.

[@iFaaNaTiiK]

Any idea of the religious piece of music playing from 5:30?

[@jorgeniidea6145]

please tell me as well

[@jimsykes6843]

Hunter gatherers also depended on the "circle of the seasons" - that was not just invented by farming. For a book on this topic, look at Graeber and Wengrow's recent "The Dawn of Everything". Hunter-gatherers and even some 'sedentary' peoples changed places depending on the seasons. So what we think of as farming communities may have sometimes been hunter-gatherers, and hunter-gatherers may have moved depending on the seasons. This video makes it seem like 'music for leisure' is directly the outcome of farming. But hunter-gatherers also played (and play!) music for leisure. For instance, in some societies, songs were (and are!) played when people return from a hunt. Some hunter-gatherers societies in Central Africa, for instance. In discussing music in relation to 'power', the speaker makes it sound like such power necessarily means songs for 'the king'. But a lot of traditional music around the world - perhaps most - was sacred music, where music was a means of communicating/exchanging with divine powers (gods, demons) and spirits (such as deceased ancestors). These also had power. In some societies, such as in Southeast Asian and South Asian communities, the 'king' might have actually been considered a kind of divine figure. And some indigenous communities also have played music for spirits who have some kind of power over them. So his evolutionary schema really does not make sense. It's also not true that concerts for 'leisure' were only performed for the upper classes. To take one random example, Tamil plantations laborers in Malaysia in the early twentieth century were allowed to enjoy films from mobile trucks and staged plays that included music outside of work hours. I'm sure the examples could have been multiplied. All throughout South and Southeast Asian history, epics like the Mahabharata and Ramayana were performed in villages for average people. And this was leisure, even when or if it sometimes had a ritual component. The largest historical transition in conceptualizing music, I contend, had more to do with how it is viewed in relation to 'work'. Music became viewed not as a job you're born into (like a caste) or something that is mundane labor performed functionally in daily activities; it became redefined as something 'after work', as 'blowing off steam'. He's also wrong in saying that in previous times there was no distinction between people who perform music and people who listen to it. In many societies, particularly throughout South Asia, drummers were often parts of the lower castes or outcastes (such as in South India) and performed at funerals and other religious events for the upper castes. This is not the only place where musician was a stigmatized profession that performed for upper castes. In Korea, for example, traditionally the lower castes performed for the upper castes. And the upper castes would not typically play that kind of music. He's right that the modern idea of a composer is new. I'm sorry for being a snob, and I did enjoy the video, there is value in it, particularly in the latter half. But I do have a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and have taught this topic for almost twenty years, so I believe my statements are not coming out of thin air.

[@pablotnr]

I love this! Do you have any recommended readings on what you mention?

[@ChrisLeeW00]

Sometimes I wonder how many wooden instruments are completely lost due to degredation. Bone lasts, some metals can last for a bit, but wood is not likely to last 10,000 years unless it’s in a bog.

[@gatb4387]

This man is such a great speaker/professional. Kudos to the editors for an engaging video, too.

[@bigthink]

Thank you, glad you liked it!

[@KarenJordan-cd5nx]

Thank you ~

[@frederikestortelers4716]

Some argue that our bodily connection to music and the universal occurrence of it can be explained with rhythmic entrainment, which is a physics principle that makes metronomes align their movements. The rhythmic pulses in our brain align to the pulses from our outer world, creating a timeframe (or affordance) for movement. 120 bpm is popular for dance music and it is similar to a quick walking pace, coincidence? I think not

[@denizmodus1855]

Amazing video

[@ConalDoyle]

Music is and always will be just another form of communication. It's a dialect of Dance. Musicians take it too seriously and everyone else sees it for what it it really is.

[@phlezktravels]

What a wonderful video

[@meetontheledge1380]

Our notions of ''discordance'' have also contracted! Hayden might not have liked Ornette Coleman- but I surely do. Interesting that many jazz players of Coleman's generation thought it was ''out of tune'' or noise. But I'd heard Hendrix for a good decade before encountering Coleman, and took to his music like a ''duck to water''. On the sad side, the loss of, say- Aztec culture (and music) is heartbreaking. I LOVED the way in Close Encounters, humans and extraterrestrials first communicated through music. Yes, music can be seen as ''mathematical'', but I like to think the ''space travelers'' just dug the sound! Maybe they'd have come sooner, if SETI was blasting Stevie Wonder's, Superstitious, or Pachelbel's Cannon! I wonder how many light years out, the sound of Elvis has gone? Imagine if the mother ship ignores D.C., London, or the Giza Plateau, and lands in the front yard of Graceland! 😊

[@scubat5360]

Wants to emphasize that composers aren't all there is to music history Classical music is playing in the background

[@elias7748]

Composers make up most history of music. Without the composer where is the music ?

[@mosun7713]

environment determines change, in all things. so interesting

[@daveconrad6562]

but you don't really care for music, do you?

[@gracie99999]

not so much music but it’s effect

[@daveconrad6562]

@@gracie99999 that's why selling your soul sucks the most eh?

[@RickImus]

A reference to Leonard Cohen's, "Hallelujah," for the unitintiated.

[@Lettervvriter612]

Don't really care for Leonard Cohen..

[@jordansage9655]

5:50 Love greogiran chanting

[@jeanemoune8440]

I jus came back from kribi Cameroon yesterday 1 of the most beautiful beach places I’ve ever seen in Africa

[@slevinchannel7589]

I hope Big-Think reads this, but whatever, its mainly for the Fans of this channel when i say: Have you seen all the Smart Entertainment that Joe Scott and Sci Man Dan provide?

[@TheBoko7]

Humans have created music for pleasure and sadness; your channel shooting incredible interesting videos.

[@RKupyr]

Musical notation, like writing down language or creating physical art structures (paintings, buildings, etc.) allows increased complexity but usually results in (not necessarily entirely eliminated but) greatly reduced spontaneity. Complexity -- for example, complex thoughts spread across our planet in the form of books, orchestras of 100 musicians playing intricate works with razor precision; and spontaneity -- the mood of the moment as reflected in almost every musical occurrence EXCEPT what little has been written down, so including traditionally-played Indian classical music, American Jazz, Japanese shakuhachi, Javanese gamelan, Spanish flamenco, West-African Kora and on and on and on, around and around and around the world. Both styles have a lot to offer us. The issue is that spontaneity, like Michael Spitzer points out, is impossible to capture and keep alive; so it's hard to can it and make money from it. In a world where we all have access to music but mostly in the form of recorded, for-sale units on portable electronic devices, spontaneous music is being pushed to the side. I think that the future of music, like our interaction and experience in the metaverse, is going through a highly-artificial period at the moment, which, besides offering us many new experiences and abilities, will lead to a strong desire to return to "the real thing" -- real-life outdoor adventures, increased popularity of acoustic music and spontaneous (improvised) music of all types.

[@piotrostrowski2501]

THX

[@ahmedalhouti4207]

I kindly want to sample this for my report at some point.❤

[@TockaMea]

Always assumed the first instrument was a tree leaf. Humans noticed that the wind blowing through a tree made a sound. And we tried to replicate that by blowing on it.

[@markoDbogdanovic]

In the beginning there was rhythm. Percussion instruments and a voice are older than any wind instruments.

[@Pouncer9000]

First instrument was a thigh bone to the head of a rival, still the best sound there is.

[@grandtheftmanualv945]

For me, I always pictured vocals first, obviously, then realising we have lots of things around we can bang out a rhythm with out hands, ie trees, logs, rock etc. That probably went on for millennia before the first melodic instrument, which may have been a leaf as you say, or a bone - lying on the ground with the wind blowing thru, same can be said for a hollow wooden stick. Perhaps melody was first replicated by blowing through clasped hands? I can spend hours trying to imagine the origins of melodic musical accompaniment - obviously vocal and rhythm was first.

[@amusicment4829]

❤ And imitating birds :)

[@endezeichengrimm]

No man. It was an upright bass.

[@BKaneNp8]

I love that Tupac Shakur’s photo was included

[@Adrianna-Weeks]

Book: Musical human, the history of life on earth. He really believes that the idea and the way music is seen today and which composer composed which song at what time kinda overvalues the role of a composer compared to most people who are innately musical.

[@rabbitgothops]

I need more cow bell

[@kukensson]

Thanks for illustrating what the human voice is with a 10 second video clip

[@misterfunnybones]

He missed the enormous influence of Indonesian folk music mentioned in the Spinal Tap documentary fully explained by the glorious Nigel Tufnel.

[@adamschoedel8829]

I learned everything I know from Nigel Tufnel.

[@Iknowthismeme]

*english sub* *turns sub off* *english sub is still on* Repeat x11 What a nice video