The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature (26 page)
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Authors: Daniel J. Levitin
BOOK: The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
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Compare this with an annual ritual of the villagers on Pentecost Island in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu. Each year young males take part in the ritual of
nagahol,
as part of a plea to the gods to ensure, among other things, a good yam crop. Young males construct tall, colorful, elaborately decorated poles up to seventy-five feet high and as all the villagers sing and dance, the males climb the poles and then jump off, held by a thin vine. If he concludes his dive successfully, a male is then considered an adult and can take a wife from among the spectators. As far as we know, there are no bowerbirds on Pentecost Island and never have been. Either a common neurobiological imperative underlies the ceremony, or it is a coincidence. Is
nagahol
part of a religion or is it an isolated ritual? At what point does ritual become religion? Sulawesi villagers engage in a rain dance that includes stylized imitation of the sound of rain, meant to induce it. Their dance and music and actions have a clear goal and intended effect. I leave the distinction between religion and ritual in the mind of the beholder (and the question of whether this belief constitutes a
belief system
or not is inessential to a discussion of the evolution of religious song).
nagahol,
as part of a plea to the gods to ensure, among other things, a good yam crop. Young males construct tall, colorful, elaborately decorated poles up to seventy-five feet high and as all the villagers sing and dance, the males climb the poles and then jump off, held by a thin vine. If he concludes his dive successfully, a male is then considered an adult and can take a wife from among the spectators. As far as we know, there are no bowerbirds on Pentecost Island and never have been. Either a common neurobiological imperative underlies the ceremony, or it is a coincidence. Is
nagahol
part of a religion or is it an isolated ritual? At what point does ritual become religion? Sulawesi villagers engage in a rain dance that includes stylized imitation of the sound of rain, meant to induce it. Their dance and music and actions have a clear goal and intended effect. I leave the distinction between religion and ritual in the mind of the beholder (and the question of whether this belief constitutes a
belief system
or not is inessential to a discussion of the evolution of religious song).
Religion—whether God-given, man-made, or a gift of natural selection—can be seen as an important part of inclusive fitness. All higher animals have a “security-motivation” system that monitors environmental conditions and motivates them to act via emotional states if danger is imminent. The system monitors both external events in the world and internal states such as pain, fever, and nausea. The brain mechanisms underlying this can be broken down into three parts: (1) an appraisal system compares events being monitored to a list of things known to be dangerous (either known by experience, or innately); (2) an evaluation system determines the magnitude of the hazard; and (3) an action system causes the human or animal to execute a response that will reduce the danger, by moving, running, fighting, or any number of other strategies innate or learned.
The display aspect of single rituals, or those sets of rituals that become bound into religious acts, allows common human fears and concerns to be given a broad social context in which they can be shared with the community and make better sense. Religion further lets us partition our fears into those that we and our community are going to worry about and those that we are not, and to take collective action toward addressing the former and systemically, in a formally sanctioned way, ignoring the latter. Depending on our belief system, we might decide as a community to pray for the health of a loved one, but not for dead relatives to come back to life; modern Christian rituals focus on Jesus not on Zeus or Thor, and we have society’s permission to ignore the latter two gods and any demands we fear they may have.
When we pray for the health of a dying loved one, the termination of the prayer confers a great psychological advantage: It allows us to stop worrying. We breathe a sigh of relief and affirm that “it’s in God’s hands; her fate is decided.” This is clearly adaptive, because it propels us to get on with our lives and to stop ruminating about things that we can’t change, and to worry about those we can. Interestingly, however, the fear-security-motivation system was “built” thousands or tens of thousands of years ago and it is not responsive to those current threats that are most dangerous: This is why so many of us are afraid of spiders and snakes, which cause far fewer deaths than cars or cigarettes, which most of us are not afraid of.
Another function of rituals is to change the state-of-the-world, thereby reducing ambiguity. Consider male puberty rites, which are part of most cultures. Unlike the onset of menses, which unambiguously signals the transition from girlhood to womanhood in females, no such biological marker exists for males. Male puberty rites remove the ambiguity about the young male’s role in society, whether he should act as a boy or a man. The rite turns more-or-less information into yes/no information: Before the rite he is a boy, after he is a man.
A marriage ceremony turns a man and a woman into husband and wife. This parallels a prominent theory in psycholinguistics about human speech acts. Most of the time our utterances are simply speech acts that express opinions, make requests, provide information, or share our emotional state. There is a small class of utterances, however, that hold a special status as being able to change the state-of-the-world. This happens when a duly recognized official makes a declaration that has either legal or definitional consequences. An example is a minister saying “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” If he is officially recognized by the church or state, this simple sentence changes the status of the couple. Similar state-changing utterances include a judge announcing a verdict (the guilty or innocent proclamation dramatically changes the legal and practical state of the defendant), a government official deputizing a law enforcement officer, the chief justice inaugurating the President, or even a coroner pronouncing someone dead. (Note that in the latter case, even if the person isn’t dead at all, the proclamation by a duly authorized coroner changes the legal status of the victim, allowing for autopsy, burial, and other actions not otherwise allowed.)
When people come together and want to inaugurate or celebrate a change of social status, such as a wedding or the installation of a leader, music is virtually always there. Music is also there at harvest celebrations and anniversaries of a birth, death, or important battle. Commemoration seems to require music. The specificity of time and place is an interesting aspect of religion songs (and the subset of ritual songs I’m including) that sets them apart from the other five categories in this book. Everyone knows ritual songs can only be sung at the right time and place. But songs of joy, for example, can be sung anytime that songs can be sung; not in a library or in the middle of a play, for example, but if songs are otherwise permitted, there is no reason that you couldn’t sing a joy song, or a friendship song, or a knowledge song. Religion /ritual songs, on the other hand, and their associated religious /ritual events, carry very strict restrictions on time and place.
Take for example, the Elgar composition “Pomp and Circumstance,” also known as “The Graduation March,” played at high school and college graduation ceremonies all across North America, as students file up to receive their diplomas (it is also New Zealand’s national anthem). The song has interesting musical qualities. It begins with a legato line of notes in close proximity to one another: The first fifteen notes are all stepwise and then the sixteenth note of the piece takes a large ascending leap of a perfect fourth immediately followed by a falling perfect fifth—a move that grabs our attention. “Pomp and Circumstance” is played with a stately pace, and the instrumentation gives it a sense of majesty, seriousness, and procession. So well known and uniquely associated with commencement, it is even used at some nursery school and kindergarten graduation ceremonies. But no one plays this piece at sporting events, or on a dinner date, or at a wedding.
Even the most insensitive clod would recognize its misuse at the wrong time or place. If there was a high school assembly being conducted, an informational session perhaps, for students who were being held back a year in school due to poor academic performance, and the principal played “Pomp and Circumstance,” it would seem cruel. Or consider a Ph.D. oral exam. It would be unusual, but not unacceptable, for a student to start playing a tape recording of “Pomp and Circumstance” once the exam was over and the committee told him he had passed. But if the student played the same song
before
the exam, the committee would find it so presumptuous as to be offensive.
before
the exam, the committee would find it so presumptuous as to be offensive.
The criticality of time and place is a hallmark of ritual songs, and it is so important that if it is violated, jobs can be lost and even—in the extreme—so can lives. Consider songs that accompany a country’s ruler, such as “Hail to the Chief ” or “God Save the Queen,” played respectively when the President of the United States or the British queen enters a room. If a scheming, conniving underling were to instruct the military band to play the song every time
he
walked in a room, it would be seen as a direct and aggressive challenge to the reigning ruler’s authority. In a dictatorship, playing the leadership song for the wrong person could easily result in a death sentence. Such is the importance of time and place in ritual and religion songs.
he
walked in a room, it would be seen as a direct and aggressive challenge to the reigning ruler’s authority. In a dictatorship, playing the leadership song for the wrong person could easily result in a death sentence. Such is the importance of time and place in ritual and religion songs.
Ritual and religion songs are therefore, to my way of thinking, bound to particular times and events, and for the explicit purpose of accompanying, guiding, or sanctifying a specific spiritual act. Under this definition “Jingle Bells” or “Deck the Halls” are not religion songs, although they spring from the celebration of a religious holiday. Rather, I see them as friendship songs, binding us to friends and family who hold similar beliefs. Christmas carols can be sung during a broad range of occasions surrounding the season of the holiday; as I conceive ritual and religion songs, they are far more restricted. Similarly, national anthems and football fight songs, although ritualistic (being played at the beginning of a competition, for example), are really serving a social bonding function more than a religious or spiritual one. “The Wedding March,” “The Funeral March,” the Mass, the Song of Atonement, on the other hand,
are
religion songs in that they
must
be performed at a certain time and place and they
cannot
be performed whenever one pleases. To do so would seem improper. I could sing “Jingle Bells” or “Over the River and Through the Woods” in the middle of July. It might seem odd, but it would not seem improper, sacrilegious, or disrespectful.
are
religion songs in that they
must
be performed at a certain time and place and they
cannot
be performed whenever one pleases. To do so would seem improper. I could sing “Jingle Bells” or “Over the River and Through the Woods” in the middle of July. It might seem odd, but it would not seem improper, sacrilegious, or disrespectful.
Some form of music accompanies every behavior that even remotely resembles a religious practice worldwide, from the Pentecost Islanders’ male puberty ritual, to ancient Egyptian funeral services, to a contemporary Catholic Mass. In a great many ceremonies, there is a clear goal to perform the act
as a community
. Part of music’s role then involves the social bonding function of bringing together members of a community in this moment of making the request (for food, rain, health, etc.), the feeling of “strength in numbers” at appearing before the gods (invoking a feature of friendship songs), and part of music’s involvement is because it is effective at encoding the particular formula of a request that has worked in the past (invoking a feature of knowledge songs). But songs used in a religious context, while they have these elements of the friendship and knowledge songs described earlier, are a radically different type of song because of their connection to a belief system, and their being tethered to a particular time and place. Also crucial is music’s power to encode the details of the ritual—remember that by definition, rituals involve repetitive movements, and music exerts its power here to encode the proper conduct of the movements, synchronously with the music.
as a community
. Part of music’s role then involves the social bonding function of bringing together members of a community in this moment of making the request (for food, rain, health, etc.), the feeling of “strength in numbers” at appearing before the gods (invoking a feature of friendship songs), and part of music’s involvement is because it is effective at encoding the particular formula of a request that has worked in the past (invoking a feature of knowledge songs). But songs used in a religious context, while they have these elements of the friendship and knowledge songs described earlier, are a radically different type of song because of their connection to a belief system, and their being tethered to a particular time and place. Also crucial is music’s power to encode the details of the ritual—remember that by definition, rituals involve repetitive movements, and music exerts its power here to encode the proper conduct of the movements, synchronously with the music.
Consider the ancient
Devr
ritual of the Kotas, a group of two thousand people who live in the Nilgiri Hills, a region bordering the South Indian states of Tamilnadu, Kerala, and Karnataka. Although unique in its details, it highlights common themes among belief, ritual, movement, and music that exist across all cultures and times.
Devr
ritual of the Kotas, a group of two thousand people who live in the Nilgiri Hills, a region bordering the South Indian states of Tamilnadu, Kerala, and Karnataka. Although unique in its details, it highlights common themes among belief, ritual, movement, and music that exist across all cultures and times.
Devr
begins on the first Monday after the waxing of the first crescent moon of winter. Villagers gather wood, prepare special ceremonial clothing, eat only a vegetarian diet, reduce their alcohol consumption, and walk barefoot. They clean and purify their homes using special plants (including branches from the tak tree, which contains a purple ellipsoidal berry that grows on a thorny stem). Designated individuals create and transfer a series of special fires that are conduits for divinity. The village deities (who are said to be present in these fires) inhabit stick bundles in a back room of a
mundkanon
’s (leader in all village god rituals) house called a
kakuy
. When the bundles are put in the fire, the deities can express themselves to the community.
begins on the first Monday after the waxing of the first crescent moon of winter. Villagers gather wood, prepare special ceremonial clothing, eat only a vegetarian diet, reduce their alcohol consumption, and walk barefoot. They clean and purify their homes using special plants (including branches from the tak tree, which contains a purple ellipsoidal berry that grows on a thorny stem). Designated individuals create and transfer a series of special fires that are conduits for divinity. The village deities (who are said to be present in these fires) inhabit stick bundles in a back room of a
mundkanon
’s (leader in all village god rituals) house called a
kakuy
. When the bundles are put in the fire, the deities can express themselves to the community.
The beginning of the ceremony,
omayn,
is signaled by the unison blasts of the
kob
(a brass instrument) along with flutes and drums. The word
omayn
means “sounding as one” and is similar, of course, to the Jewish and Christian
amen
and the Sanskrit
aum
meaning “it is true” or “we all agree.” The gods hear these forceful blasts as an attention-getting invitation to enter the village. Much ceremonial music throughout the world has this attention-getting quality, from the rising perfect fourth of “Pomp and Circumstance” to the sudden appearance of the fifth in Kyrie of the Catholic Mass (on the word
Christe
).
omayn,
is signaled by the unison blasts of the
kob
(a brass instrument) along with flutes and drums. The word
omayn
means “sounding as one” and is similar, of course, to the Jewish and Christian
amen
and the Sanskrit
aum
meaning “it is true” or “we all agree.” The gods hear these forceful blasts as an attention-getting invitation to enter the village. Much ceremonial music throughout the world has this attention-getting quality, from the rising perfect fourth of “Pomp and Circumstance” to the sudden appearance of the fifth in Kyrie of the Catholic Mass (on the word
Christe
).
For the next ten to twelve days, Kotas perform instrumental music, dance, and sing to express their joy, unity, and respect for the gods, and to entertain them. Particular songs are used during ritual bathing and food offering, as individuals synchronize their movements to the music. A highlight of the
Devr
celebration occurs when villagers join together to re-thatch the temple roof. As the music plays, they throw sanctified materials onto the roof. To perform the ritual properly, the throwing must be synchronized with the horn blasts from the
kob
players so that the upward motion of the throwing arm is simultaneous with the playing of a piercing tremolo on the highest note on the instrument. Other notes give emphasis to changes in orientation and motion, both horizontal and vertical.
Devr
celebration occurs when villagers join together to re-thatch the temple roof. As the music plays, they throw sanctified materials onto the roof. To perform the ritual properly, the throwing must be synchronized with the horn blasts from the
kob
players so that the upward motion of the throwing arm is simultaneous with the playing of a piercing tremolo on the highest note on the instrument. Other notes give emphasis to changes in orientation and motion, both horizontal and vertical.
In this and other rituals, music performs a critical, synthetic, and catalytic function. Music synthesizes disparate parts of the motor activities under a single melodic/temporal scheme. It catalyzes the actions by its alternation of tension and release: When rituals are synchronized with music specially designed for the undertaking of the ritual, the music reaches an emotional peak when the activity does, and reaches a resolution and release of harmonic tension as the activity draws to a close. Music guides participants to the proper, rigid, accurate performance of the ritual because motor action sequences can be learned
in synchrony
to the music: During
this
part of the song we raise our arms; during
that
part of the song we fold them.
in synchrony
to the music: During
this
part of the song we raise our arms; during
that
part of the song we fold them.
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