Do you like music?

Cognitive biologist Andrea Ravignani (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, B / Sealcentre Pieterburen, NL) wrote an elaborate review of The Origins of Music (2018, The MIT Press) that appeared last week in Perception:

"Do you like music? is a typical question that rarely triggers a negative reply. But why is music so common in humans despite its lack of an obvious evolutionary function? This and other questions are tackled in The Origins of Musicality. The book is the most complete overview of the novel, interdisciplinary field also known as the evolution of music. Notice that the term musicality in the title is more accurate, as it emphasises the biological, perceptual, and cognitive aspects of the cultural artefact called music. This distinction is not a mere technicality; juxtaposing music with musicality is an achievement for this field, an operational distinction that the language sciences are still hotly debating."

Read the full review here.

Honing, H. (Ed.). The Origins of Musicality. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2018; 392 pp.: ISBN 9780262037457, $50.00 or £40.00 Hardback. For more information see website of the MIT Press.