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Courtship Behavior and Sexual Selection In Humans: The Role of Music
3. Sexual Selection
Darwin observed musical courtship displays in many species of animals, notably monogamous bird species, mostly during mating season. Conspicuously by males. According to Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, the capacity for music in humans evolved as a sexually selected male courtship display, just as in other animals.
In every society, far more males than females have the urge to make music. Young males, predominantly. They say it’s for art’s sake, but they do it to get girls. It works. It’s what would be expected in a sexually-selected trait.
Fisher’s runaway sexual selection hypothesis, an elaboration of one aspect of Darwin’s theory, would help explain the huge discrepancy in male vs female participation in human music making. While males and females are equally competent at creating and performing music, males tend to become obsessive about it after puberty. Male fascination with music continues until pair-bonding, after which it tends to drop off.
There’s no reason to suppose that the various hypotheses about why music evolved in humans mutually exclude each other. It is a fact that the capacity for music, like the capacity for language, is in the brain at birth. After the motherese phase of life, the brain circuitry for music does not go away. Music remains a powerful means of emotional communication throughout life.
Mother-infant musical communication is inherently social, so it’s reasonable that the social nature of music would continue to resonate in adulthood. This would help explain the group bonding properties of music in adults, even if music originally evolved for infant survival.