From Perception to Pleasure

Download or read book From Perception to Pleasure written by Robert J. Zatorre and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Our species has been making music most likely for as long as we've been human. It seems to be an indelible a part of us. The oldest known musical instruments date back to the upper paleolithic period, some 40,000 years ago. Among the most intriguing of these are delicate bone flutes, seen in Figure 1.1, found in what is now southern Germany. (Conard et al. 2009). These discoveries testify to the advanced technology that our ancestors applied to create music: the finger holes are carefully bevelled to allow the musician's fingers to make a tight seal; and the distances between the holes appear to have been precisely measured, perhaps to correspond to a specific musical scale. This time period corresponds to the last glaciation episode in the northern hemisphere -- life could not have been easy for people living at that time. Yet time, energy, and the skills of craftworkers were expended for making abstract sounds "of the least use ... to daily habits of life". So, music must have been very meaningful and important for them. Why would that be?"--