Music is For Neanderthals

Music has always had a good press. “As Plato said: “Music uses sound to educate the soul in virtue” and most educated persons have since concurred,” according to Terence Kealey.

But scientist beg to differ. Music is the language of pre-speech. It connects with the emotions, not with reason. People who are deficient in reason, like babies, stroke victims, and autistic children are the experts in music.

Leon Miller, of the University of Illinois, described 13 people who were indeed mentally retarded. Typically, their IQs and social skills were so rudimentary that they could not speak or dress themselves. But musically they were gifted, not only playing well but also composing creatively. And, typically, they had perfect pitch.

We use music, or musicality in our voices, to communicate with babies. And they understand us. “'What a good girl!', delivered in French, provokes a happy smile in an English nursery.”

Studies show that 100 percent of mothers sing to their babies.

But here’s the nub. An archeologist, Stephen Mithen, has studied the Neanderthals and decided that they could not speak, but could sing. His book is called The Singing Neanderthals. I know, it sounds like the Trapp Family Singers.

Along came walkin’ talkin’ Homo Sapiens and it was curtains for the Singing Neanderthals.

So when Daniel Barenboim says that “making music and playing it in an orchestra is the best way to understand democracy,” he is probably wrong. Unless democracy is considered a primitive, pre-articulate activity.