Table Of ContentThe Music Instinct
How Music Works and
Why We Can’t Do Without It
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Designing the Molecular World:
Chemistry at the Frontier
Made to Measure:
New Materials for the 21st Century
Life’s Matrix:
A Biography of Water
The Self-Made Tapestry:
Pattern Formation in Nature
Bright Earth:
Art and the Invention of Color
Molecules:
A Very Short Introduction
The Elements:
A Very Short Introduction
Critical Mass:
How One Thing Leads to Another
Elegant Solutions:
Ten Beautiful Experiments in Chemistry
The Devil’s Doctor:
Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science
Nature’s Patterns:
A Tapestry in Three Parts
Universe of Stone:
A Biography of Chartres Cathedral
The Music Instinct
How Music Works and
Why We Can’t Do Without It
philip ball
1
2010
3
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Copyright © 2010 by Philip Ball
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ball, Philip, 1962–
The music instinct : how music works and why we can't do without it / Philip Ball.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-975427-4
1. Music—Philosophy and aesthetics. 2. Music and science.
I. Title.
ML3800.B2085 2010
781'.1—dc22 2010017795
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
Preface vii
Author’s Note ix
1 Prelude: The Harmonious Universe
An Introduction 1
2 Overture: Why We Sing
What is music and where does it come from? 9
3 Staccato: The Atoms of Music
What are musical notes and how do we decide which to use? 32
4 Andante: What’s In a Tune?
Do melodies follow rules, and if so, which? 91
5 Legato: Keeping It Together
How do we decode the sound? 137
6 Tutti: All Together Now
How do we use more than one note at a time? 163
7 Con Moto: Slave to the Rhythm
What gives music its pulse? 207
8 Pizzicato: The Colour of Music
Why do instruments sound different,
and how does that affect the music? 228
vi the music instinct
9 Misterioso: All In the Mind
Which bits of the brain do we use for music? 240
10 Appassionato: Light My Fire
How does music convey and elicit emotion? 254
11 Capriccioso: Going In and Out of Style
What are musical styles?
Is music about notes, or patterns, or textures? 322
12 Parlando: Why Music Talks to Us
Is music a language? Or is it closer to the non-verbal arts? 355
13 Serioso: The Meaning of Music
What are composers and musicians trying to say?
Can music in itself say anything at all? 381
Coda: The Condition of Music 409
Credits 413
Notes 415
Bibliography 425
Index 443
Preface
‘Must the majority be made “unmusical” so that a few may become
more “musical”?’ This question, in John Blacking’s seminal 1973 book
How Musical Is Man?, apparently sums up the status of music in Western
culture: it is composed by a tiny minority and performed by a slightly
larger one, and these are the people we call ‘musicians’. But Blacking
points to the contradiction inherent in the way that music is at the
same time utterly pervasive in this culture: at supermarkets and
airports, in movies and on television (every programme must have its
theme tune), at important ceremonies, and now, on the private,
portable soundscapes that snake ubiquitously from pocket to ear. ‘“My”
society’, says Blacking, ‘claims that only a limited number of people
are musical, yet it behaves as if all people possessed the basic capacity
without which no musical tradition can exist – the capacity to listen
to and distinguish patterns of sound.’ He implies that this assumption
goes still further: ‘his’ society presupposes shared ground in the way
those patterns will be interpreted, understood, responded to.
And of course these assumptions are justified: we do have this
capacity to hear music, and to develop a cultural consensus about how
to respond to it. Yet we have, in the West at least, decided that these
mental faculties are so commonplace that they are hardly worth noting,
let alone celebrating or designating as ‘musical’ attributes. Blacking’s
experiences among African cultures in which music-making was far
less rigidly apportioned between ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’ – where,
indeed, those categories were sometimes meaningless – helped him
to appreciate the oddness of this situation. Personally, I suspect that
it might in any event be easy to overplay that schism, which, to the
extent that it exists at all, may prove to be partly a transient aspect of
the emergence of mass media. Before music could be recorded and
broadcast, people made it themselves. And now it is increasingly easy
and cheap to make and broadcast it yourself, huge numbers are doing
so. Yet we still tend to ascribe primacy of musicality to the ‘produc-
tion’ mode. In this book I hope to show why the ‘capacity to listen
to and distinguish patterns of sound’, which we nearly all possess, is
the essence of musicality. The book is about how this capacity arises.
And I want to suggest that, while hearing great music played by great
performers is an incomparable pleasure, this is not the only way to
get enjoyment and satisfaction from music.
Because the question of how music does what it does is so phenom-
enally complicated and elusive, one could easily construct an illusion
of cleverness by pointing out flaws in the answers offered so far. I
hope it will be clear that this is not my intention. Everyone has strong
opinions on these matters, and thank goodness for that. In a subject
of this nature, ideas and views that differ from one’s own should not
be targets for demolition, but whetstones for sharpening one’s own
thoughts. And since it is likely that everyone will find something with
which to disagree in this book, I hope that readers will feel the same
way.
For helpful advice and discussion, providing material, and for general
support or even just good intentions, I am grateful to Aniruddh Patel,
Stefan Koelsch, Jason Warren, Isabelle Peretz, Glenn Schellenberg,
Oliver Sacks and David Huron. I am once again much indebted to my
agent Clare Alexander for her encouragement, insight and incompar-
able combination of experience, diplomacy and resolve. I am thankful
to be in the safe and supportive editorial hands of Will Sulkin and
Jörg Hensgen at Bodley Head. And I cherish the music that Julia and
Mei Lan bring into our home.
I should like to dedicate this book to everyone with whom I have
made music.
Philip Ball
London
November 2009
Author’s Note
To listen to the musical examples illustrated in this book, please visit
www.oup.com/us/themusicinstinct
