Events

GIEMTC Seminar

30th April 2025, 14.00-15.00, Escola Superior de Educação, Politécnico do Porto

Room B101

Free entrance, Sala Zoom https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/95939101080

Evolutionary psychology and the necessity for music education for all

Nicholas Bannan

Conservatory of Music, University of Western Australia

Abstract

Analysis of language since Rameau has focused on the musical features of vowel production in speech. 19th century speculation on the evolution of human communication by von Humboldt, Hemlholtz and Darwin has led, since the end of the 20th century, to a growing consensus that musical vocalisation played a decisive part in human development.

The evidence for this is underpinned by research in acoustic theory, speech science, analysis of the singing voice, music psychology and the study of emotion and its effect on vocal timbre, as well on the effectiveness of singing in music therapy for stroke victims and people with Alzheimer’s who have lost the capacity for language.

While classic linguistic theory accepts the phonemes of speech as arbitrary units, the production of vowels accords to the predictive properties of the Harmonic Series. In listening acutely to language, we can reveal the musical properties that relate harmony to timbre, and that underpin the phenomena in music theory and aural development that can be taught effectively though creative collective participation.

Biography

Nicholas Bannan studied music at Clare College, Cambridge University, and received commissions from several choirs, the Guildhall String Ensemble and the Grieg Quartet. He taught at the University of Reading and the University of Western Australia. His research focuses on the evolutionary origins of the human singing voice. He edited with George Odam The Reflective Conservatoire (Ashgate, 2005), and edited Music, Language, and Human Evolution (OUP, 2012). As a teacher, he developed the evolutionarily informed pedagogical system he named ‘Harmony Signing’, which led to the publications Every Child a Composer (Peter Lang, 2019) and First Instruments (OUP, 2020).