The Origins of Music

Music is an important part of our lives. We connect and interact with it daily and use it as a way of projecting our self-identities to the people around us. The music we enjoy – whether it’s country or classical, rock n’ roll or rap – 1 who we are.

But where did music, at its core, first come from? It’s a puzzling question that may not have a definitive answer. One 2 researcher, however, has proposed that the key to understanding the origin of music is nestled snugly in the loving bond between mother and child. In a lecture at the University of Melbourne, Richard Parncutt, an Australian-born professor of systematic musicology, endorsed the idea that music originally spawned from ‘motherese’ – the playful voices mothers 3 when speaking to 4 and toddlers.

As the theory goes, an increased human brain size caused by evolutionary changes occurring between one and 2,000,000 years ago resulted in earlier births, more fragile infants and a 5 need for stronger relationships between mothers and their newborn babies. According to Parncutt, who is based at the University of Graz in Austria, ‘motherese’ arose as a way to strengthen this maternal bond and to help 6 an infant’s survival.