Evolving Musicality

Musicality: Instinct or Acquired Skill?

Is the human tendency toward musicality better thought of as the product of a specific, evolved instinct or an acquired skill? Developmental and evolutionary arguments are considered, along with issues of domain-specificity. The article also considers the question of why humans might be consistently and intensely drawn to music if musicality is not in fact the product of a specifically evolved ...

Exploring musical interaction between a teacher and pupil, and her evolving musicality, using a music- theoretical approach

In the context of a single case study, this paper explores the musical interaction between a pupil and teacher, and the pupil’s evolving musicality, using the music-theoretical approach to the cognition of musical structure set out by Ockelford (2002, 2004, 2005a, 2005b, 2006a) – ‘zygonic theory’. The object of the study is a vocal improvisation by ‘K’, a 4 1⁄2 -year-old girl with septo-optic d...

On Music Cognition, Musicality and Methodology

NIME, Musicality and Practice-led Methods

To engage with questions of musicality is to invite into consideration a complex network of topics beyond the mechanics of soundful interaction with our interfaces. Drawing on the work of Born, I sketch an outline of the reach of these topics. I suggest that practice-led methods, by dint of focussing on the lived experience where many of these topics converge, may be able to serve as a useful m...

Cross-cultural perspectives on music and musicality.

Musical behaviours are universal across human populations and, at the same time, highly diverse in their structures, roles and cultural interpretations. Although laboratory studies of isolated listeners and music-makers have yielded important insights into sensorimotor and cognitive skills and their neural underpinnings, they have revealed little about the broader significance of music for indi...