https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=aXWfcOa8928

So I've just come back from a music festival. And every time I go to a festival I do think
what is it about a simple series of sound waves transmitted through the air that
vibrates the little thing in our ears that makes hundreds of thousands of people come
together to dance in a random field in England.

And the music has been moving people for thousands of years in all cultures. Babies
dance to music without anyone teaching them. A love for musics literally hardwired
(cableado) into our genetics. But what's so special about these sound waves? Why do
we love music?

Well, I've come back and done some googling. The amazing thing is nobody knows,
but I'd like to share with you some of the theories.

According to one theory it helps us form social bonds. A music festival like this one
shows just how well music can create a collective purpose in a group of, otherwise,
unconnected people. We've really enjoyed moving and dancing together. This is argue
to give us an evolutionary benefit. It's much harder to coordinate a march without a
drumbeat. The joint creation and music tightens solidarity between the group and
music also creates a shared emotional state. So those tribes that had music survived
better and passed on their Abba loving genes. The problem with this theory is that it
relies on group selection, that's the idea that a tribe without music would be so
disadvantaged without the benefits of solidarity, that the whole tribe could be wiped
out. With weapons such as spears and bows and arrows tribes have the ability to
murder all their enemies. Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that a whole tribe would be
wiped out just because it didn't coordinate via music.

Another theory argues that music is a happy accident, a byproduct of the

development of language. Dr. Pinker calls it auditory cheesecake. For our survival we
need food that sustains us. That's why we developed an appetite for energy rich fat
and sugar - the main ingredients of cheesecake. Similarly the brain needs to be able to
turn sound into meaning, therefore when it's faced with a sound rich with melody tone
and rhythm it goes mad for it. We didn't evolve to love cheesecake nor do we evolve to
love music. Instead it's a byproduct of other evolutionary needs. The problem with Dr.
Pincus argument is that it undersales music. Music’s been found in all societies and
all continents, so we'd seem a bit strange that there'll be no evolutionary benefit to
music, given this universality. The second point is that there's no archaeological
evidence to say that language developed before music. Those flute I mentioned over
40,000 years old so it's likely that singing will predate (occurirse) those by tens of
thousands of years. The debate still rages on.

A final theory which is more about our love for rhythm and bass argues it all comes
down to our time in the womb. There we were comforted by the constant rhythm of
our mother's heartbeat. What's more, our mother's body filtered out most of the high
frequency, so we only really heard bass for the time that we developed. Some argue
that's why we love banging beats and dirty bass lines because it provides some
subconscious maternal comfort.

Okay so there the theories, they've all got their own drawbacks and indeed more than
one may be correct. Dr. Ping Khmer be right that it was originally an accident, but Dr.
Nipper may be on to something when he says that would give us an evolutionary
benefit later on. But these theories they only scratched the surface. Music is so much
more complex, it makes us laugh, makes us cry, makes us fall in love, motivates us
and also makes our hair stand on end. And also, we all have our own particular taste
in music so I look down on anyone who doesn't like drum&bass, and the New York
Jazz greats would sit in their cafes sneering at anyone who liked popular music. But
that's what makes me love music all the more, it's so mysterious and yet engenders
such powerful emotional reactions. I can't help but think human beings are pretty
incredible.

Hey guys thanks for watching. So what do you reckon, what theory best explains this
miss for you or do you have your own? Let me know in the comment section. If you
want to see more of my videos, click my face to subscribe. I hope you have a great day
and I'll see you for the next video.