Why Music?

Why Music?

Update: 2025-03-04
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Description

This episode takes us from the evolution of human musicality into the realm of music itself, and its origins. That story is big, controversial, and messy. So, I've sorted it into easily digestible summaries of the ideas of Charles Darwin, Steven Brown, and Steven Pinker: three thinkers whose work is important for understanding how and why we started making music. It could have been really long, but I've cleverly limited it to under 25 minutes.

Support the project!

Here's a link to a brief and delightfully tension-filled conversation between Police drummer Stewart Copeland and Harvard Linguist/Psychologist Steven Pinker, referenced in the last third or so of the episode.

Episode playlist here. I'll be tinkering with these playlists periodically, so feel free to add them to your library and revisit from time-to-time.



This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
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Why Music?

Why Music?

Grant Samuelsen