音乐的学问作文

Science of Music

音乐的学问

Jonathon Keats 乔纳森·基茨

Some 40，000 years ago， a slender bone flute was abandoned in a Central European cave. Carved with five finger holes and a tapered mouthpiece， the instrument dates from around the dawn of human settlement on the continent.

Humans have been making music for a very long time.

Even that flute is probably a recent example of our musical development. Its sophisticated design suggests knowledge of acoustics， likely drawing on long-standing musical customs. But earlier practices are elusive because the first music was most certainly made with the body and voice， dying with its creators. Charles Darwin considered our musical behaviors to be “amongst the most mysterious.” At least in terms of origins， his words still resonate.

One way of exploring musicality before Stone Age flautists crashed Europe is to study hominid anatomy. Fossils show our australopithecine ancestors had vocal structures akin to gorillas， which lack the ability to carry a tune. But Homo heidelbergensis， likely our last common ancestor with Neanderthals， had vocal physiology very similar to modern humans. Given that H. heidelbergensis evolved at least 500，000 years ago， music may have a 500-millennium history.

Of course， the capacity to make music is not proof that music was actually created. And it certainly doesn’t answer the question of why. Was music important enough to drive evolution — offering selective advantages to the most musical？ Or was it just an accessory to other developments， like language？

At one extreme， Harvard University cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker has dismissed music as “auditory cheesecake.” As counterpoint， Oxford University evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar has suggested that among primates， singing may have been as important as grooming in fostering social cohesion. Potentially even more efficient than picking lice， this “grooming at a distance” may have facilitated the harmonization of large hominin groups.

Music certainly helps reinforce present-day cliques， especially the auditory cheesecake that dominates teens’ playlists. Taylor Swift may be the pinnacle of human evolution. Just don’t try to convince Steven Pinker.

Every week since Aug. 4， 1958， Billboard has compiled a list of the 100 most popular songs based on record sales， airplay and， more recently， streaming listens. For Armand Leroi， an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College London， the chart is the cultural equivalent of a fossil record. Leroi and colleagues have enlisted audio analysis techniques to sort a 50-year sample of 17，000 songs into clusters， much as field biologists might group species.

The 13 headers encompass the gamut of musical styles from 1960 to 2010. They’re sorted in groups based on similarities in patterns of chord change and tone. Standard genre names such as “country” often appear in more than one category. Leroi’s analysis shows that some country songs may be more similar to certain rock tunes than they are to other songs marketed as country.

Listeners who can get caught up in the beautiful sadness of a ballad or the intense anger of death metal know music carries meaning. But linguist Philippe Schlenker of France’s National Center for Scientific Research thinks music isn’t just a way to convey emotion. By mimicking how we experience sound in everyday life， composers embed extra nuance to help tell their stories.

大约4万年前，一根纤细的骨笛被丢弃在中欧一处洞穴里。这支乐器上刻有五个指孔和一个锥形吹口，可以追溯到人类开始定居这块大陆的前后。

人类创作音乐已有很长一段时间了。

就连那支笛子可能也是我们音乐发展历程的一个近期例证。它复杂的设计体现了声学知识，可能借鉴了长久以来的音乐习俗。不过更早以前的实践经验目前还不得而知，因为第一首音乐必定是借助身体与声音创作而成，并且随着创作者的离世而消亡。查尔斯·达尔文认为我们的音乐行为是“最神秘的事情之一”。至少在起源方面，他这番话仍会引起共鸣。

探索石器时代笛子吹奏手闯入欧洲大陆之前的音乐才能的一个方法是研究原始人解剖学。从化石来看，我们的南方古猿祖先拥有类似于大猩猩的发声结构，而大猩猩是五音不全的。不过，可能是我们与尼安德特人（石器时代生活于欧洲的古人类——译者注）最后一个共同祖先的海德堡人的发声生理机能与现代人非常类似。考虑到海德堡人至少在50万年前就已完成了进化，音乐或许有着50万年的历史。

当然，创作音乐的能力并不能证明当时真的有音乐问世。它当然也无法解答个中缘由。音乐是否重要到推动进化的地步——为最具音乐天赋的人提供选择性优势？抑或它只是其他进化结果的附属品，就像语言那样？

一个极端是，哈佛大学认知心理学家史蒂文·平克称音乐不过是“听觉乳酪蛋糕”。相对应的是，牛津大学进化心理学家罗宾·邓巴表示，在灵长目动物中，歌唱在加强社会凝聚力方面或许与梳毛一样重要。这种“远距离梳毛”有可能比捉虱子更为有效，或许促进了大型古人类群体的和谐共处。

音乐无疑有助于强化现如今的小圈子，尤其是在青少年的播放列表中占据主导的听觉乳酪蛋糕。泰勒·斯威夫特或许是人类进化所达到的顶点。只是不要尝试去说服史蒂文·平克。

自1958年8月4日以来，《公告牌》杂志每周都会依据唱片销量、在电台的播放次数以及最近开始考虑的流媒体收听量，整理出一份最受欢迎的100首歌曲榜单。在帝国理工学院的进化生物学家阿曼德·勒罗伊看来，这一排行榜相当于文化上的化石记录。勒罗伊及同事利用音频分析技术，把从50年来上榜歌曲中随机抽取的1.7万首歌曲分组，很像野外生物学家会对物种进行归类一样。

13个标题囊括了从1960年到2010年的所有音乐风格。它们的分组依据是和弦变化和音调形式上的相似性。像“乡村”这种标准音乐类型名称往往出现在不止一个类别中。勒罗伊的分析表明，有些乡村歌曲与某些摇滚曲调的相似度或许超过了与其他以乡村曲风推广的歌曲的相似度。

会沉浸在民谣的美丽哀伤或是死亡金属的强烈愤怒中不能自拔的听众明白，音乐传达着意思。但法国国家科学研究中心的语言学家菲利普·施伦克尔认为，音乐不仅仅是一种表达情感的方式。通过模仿我们在日常生活中体会声音的方式，作曲家在音乐中加入了极其细微的变化来帮助讲述他们的故事。（李凤芹译自美国《发现》月刊网站10月17日文章）