This book provides arguments and evidence for the idea that our innate musical attributes, termed ‘communicative musicality’, underpin our social lives. Malloch and Trevarthen helpfully provide both an overall introduction to this concept, and an introduction to each section of this substantial book. Communicative musicality, the authors collectively suggest, is the innate capacity that allows humans to appreciate and produce music. We also use this capacity, they propose, to communicate with one another. Prompted by observations of rhythmic and pitch-based patterns in infant-mother communication, this concept is applied throughout the text to different exemplifications of communicative musicality in real life. The book is divided into five sections, each with a different approach to communicative musicality, and discusses issues ranging from the evolution of musicality to applications of communicative musicality in therapeutic, educational and performance contexts.
The seven chapters of the first section (The origins and psychobiology of musicality) are diverse. Chapters 2 to 5 consider the evolutionary aspects of music. In Chapter 2, Dissanayake considers the origin and adaptive functions of music through a neat structural analogy of the parts of a tree. She suggests that, rather than proto-musical communication being born of sexual attraction, it is primarily born of love, specifically the individual needs of mother and child. Dissanayake also highlights the comfort found by communities through musical interaction, which, she argues, stems from the same source of mother–infant interaction. Brandt (Chapter 3) also considers the communal role of music, and presents arguments to suggest that musical practice preceded the use of signs or symbols by humans. It is the combination of language and musicality, Brandt argues, that allows us to form narratives, and to consider and enjoy non-factual information. Both Dissanayake and Brandt mention the function of music in ceremonies, religious contexts or rituals; Merker (Chapter 4) extends this idea by considering the extent to which seemingly ordinary human actions constitute ritual behaviours. Merker suggests that the origins of language lie in a uniquely human propensity for cultural group rituals (or arbitrary repeated methods of doing things) and the use of vocal learning to transmit those rituals. Cross and Morley's account (Chapter 5) of theories concerning musical evolution is clear and insightful. They suggest that music and language have equal importance for human communication, and highlight the social benefits of musical evolution. These discussions of the origins and functions of musicality complement rather than compete with one another, and provide a challenging and interesting approach to the subject through the lens of communicative musicality.
Chapters 6, 7 and 8 examine the evidence for communicative musicality in various aspects of the human body. Lee and Schögler (Chapter 6) find appropriate formulae for movement in the human body through general tau theory. Mathematical functions can be used to describe individuals’ expressive movements and the co-ordination of movements in collaborative musical contexts; and these formulae can provide a useful means of representing the neurological functions that underlie those movements. The consistency of these movements between humans, as exemplified by the formulae, provides a means by which these expressive movements are understood, both as visual and auditory cues. The understanding of expressive cues is crucial in Chapter 7 (Panksepp and Trevarthen), which examines emotional responses to music, and discusses neurological evidence for musical communication having preceded language-based communication. Turner and Ioannides (Chapter 8) provide a more general summary of the findings of neuroscientific studies concerning music, and also an excellent overview of the different techniques of brain imaging, which forms a guide to the advantages and disadvantages of each approach that is valuable for students and researchers alike.
The second section of the book (Musicality in infancy) highlights the incredible sophistication of infants and the high value of musical communication. Mazokopaki and Kugiumutzakis (Chapter 9) present the findings of a study of infants’ responses to music, ranging from facial expressions to rhythmic movements, and highlight the multi-modal nature of such responses. Communicative musicality, they argue, involves the combined abilities of the whole body. In Chapter 10, Powers and Trevarthen present an interesting cross-cultural observational study of the communication of emotions between infants and their mothers. They report evidence for the early adoption of standard cultural behaviours; this would have been even more meaningful had the statistical tests used on the data been specified. Eckerdal and Merker (Chapter 11) also explore cultural features of communicative musicality. They provide an extension and application of Merker's ideas concerning ritual, in the form of observations of infants learning action songs. The importance of adults in the enculturation of a child is evident in these chapters; however Bradley's (Chapter 12) observations of interactions between young infants without adult stimuli suggest other interesting social processes. He finds evidence of both musical and non-musical interactions, and of varying strength of attraction between group members. The last two chapters of this section explore the effects abnormal mental states may have on mother–infant communication. Depression is shown to have effects on pitch contour (Chapter 13; Marwick and Murray); and the loss of a sense of ‘belonging’, triggered either by external circumstances such as the difficulties experienced by immigrant mothers or by internal problems such as borderline personality disorder, are shown to have dramatic effects on timing in mother–infant interactions (Chapter 14; Gratier and Apter-Danon). The longer-term effects of the disturbance of either aspect of mother–infant communication are reported to be dramatic. This second section of the book is not perhaps the best source of a chronological overview of infants’ abilities; but this is not its intention, and such information is available elsewhere (Hargreaves, Reference HARGREAVES1986; Gembris, Reference GEMBRIS, Colwell and Richardson2002; McPherson, Reference MCPHERSON2006). The varied perspectives of the chapters provide insight into the social aspects of musical development and highlight hitherto unexplored musical abilities of infants, making this important reading for those with interests in the field.
The third section is perhaps the most moving part of the book, exploring a range of therapeutic approaches based around the idea of communicative musicality. Osborne (Chapter 15) reveals remarkable insights into the effects of the use of musical activities with children traumatised by war. In Chapter 16, Pavlicevic and Ansdell provide a model of musical-social development that provides a framework combining innate musicality, cultural constructions, musical activity, and the continuum of social experience from individual to community levels. They use this model to explore music therapy activities in relation to events and conditions that disturb the equilibrium of aspects of the model, such as social dysfunction or illness. The following three chapters draw upon communicative musicality in therapeutic interactions with children traumatized following sexual abuse (Robarts); deaf blind children (whose communicative musicality is exploited through rhythm, touch and dance) (Bond); and children with severe communication difficulties (Wigram and Elefant). The reported benefits are considerable and make for fascinating reading.
The fourth section of the book (Musicality in childhood learning) returns to a theme of musical development, but this time with an educational stance. Erikson (Chapter 20) provides evidence for the natural musicality that is used in classroom interactions between teacher and pupil. In Chapter 21, Bannan and Woodward explore the interactions between children and adults in relation to those behaviours that are innate, those that are encouraged, and those that are discouraged. They highlight the instances when children's spontaneous musical behaviours are understood as distracted or wrong behaviour, and the importance of maintaining a positive view of such behaviours in order to maintain children's view of themselves as musical. Similarly, Frölich (Chapter 22) discusses positive classroom techniques that maintain this sense of musicianship through a lively atmosphere, and suggests practical classroom techniques that could be helpful for music educators. In Chapter 23, Custodero explores the similarities in musical interactions between two adult improviser-composers and between children and adults, and the author uses this to advocate an inclusive music pedagogy that is more responsive to the musical utterances of children.
The fifth and final section of the text (Musicality in performance) explores the role of communicative musicality in varied forms of musical performance. Dissanayake (Chapter 24) highlights the strong effects of social bonding stemming from temporal arts such as music, suggesting that the evolution of music is at least in part a functional adaptation to those ends. In Chapter 25, Osborne highlights the inherent links between different aspects of psychobiological time, and proposes that music is an external reflection of our internal rhythms, with interesting consequences for our understanding of human co-ordination and communication. Communication is also explored in Chapter 26 (Davidson and Malloch), through the examination of gestures made by a single singer in different performance contexts, and by a flautist and clarinettist as they become familiar with a novel duet. The final chapter (Rodrigues, Rodrigues and Correia, Chapter 27) demonstrates the commonalities to be found in the production of expressive musical performances within music making in infants and parents and in formal Western art music instruction.
As a whole, the book presents a cohesive and yet diverse approach to the understanding of human social relationships through the idea that these are underpinned by our species-specific innate musical attributes. The evidence provided here through ontological, neuroscientific, empirical, and observational studies of humans in a range of situations provides a strong argument for the underlying concept of communicative musicality. Despite the breadth of content in the book, the authors demonstrate their collective understanding of communicative musicality and their familiarity with one another's work with impressive and meaningful references to other content within the book.
It is difficult to compare this text as a whole with others in the field, partly due to the breadth of scope afforded by the underlying principles of the theory of communicative musicality. The book provides a useful supplement and sometimes an alternative approach to existing texts on the origins of music (Deliège & Sloboda, Reference DELIÈGE and SLOBODA1996), music and neuroscience (Gruhn & Rauscher, Reference GRUHN and RAUSCHER2007), musical development (Hargreaves, Reference HARGREAVES1986; McPherson, Reference MCPHERSON2006), the social psychology of music (Hargreaves & North, Reference HARGREAVES and NORTH1997; North & Hargreaves, Reference NORTH and HARGREAVES2008), music therapy (Wigram et al., Reference WIGRAM, PEDERSEN and OLE2002), and emotional responses to music (Sloboda & Juslin, Reference SLOBODA and JUSLIN2001).
The wide-ranging scope of the text makes it of interest to a varied audience. Though some sections of the text use highly specialist language that is not always easy to follow, many of the chapters are more accessible and would be suitable for study by undergraduate or postgraduate students, as well as researchers of relevant fields. Those with an interest in the origins of music, music psychology (especially musical development) and empirical approaches to music; music therapy, and music education will find much to stimulate thought in this book.
