The origins of music

Was it you? Within the last couple of years I either read a theory or heard it. The theory runs “At some stage of our evolution, before we had a good handle on making fire we used rhythm to deter predators. We would stay up all night singing and dancing and this kept us safe.”

If you know me well you’ll know that this suits my world view, giving music centre stage and an important place in our development. I recently tried to verify this idea and found an anthropologist’s paper 'The biological roots of music and dance: Extending the credible signalling hypothesis to predator deterrence' by Edward Hagen.

According to the ideas in his paper, there was a time (fkin ages ago) when groups of humans adapted a startle response to signal to predators that they were dangerous, making themselves larger, vocalising loudly when under threat. This would have included banging sticks. Repetition of the response eventually led to rhythm, singing and dance.

I got in touch and Hagen confirmed that I gather that the drum sticks used in these circumstances could be considered one of our earliest technologies.

I think the continuance of this idea is that children sleeping, while the clan made music to scare predators, would associate the music they heard with safety and we’ve carried this feeling into modern times. This will be partly responsible (only partly) for our compulsion to make music and our love of dancing.

I’d like to know more about the concept. Hagen’s idea predates the rhythm and people staying up all night idea. Were you the person who first mentioned it to me? Do you have any reference material?