7 Reasons Why We Have Music

Musical appreciation is universally found in all human cultures unless deliberately inhibited by severe sanctions against it (Honing, 2018). What music offers to humans is universally valued. This universality raises the question of the origin of human musicality. What is music for, and why does every human culture have it? Here are seven main reasons why we appreciate music (Spitzer, 2021).

1. Charming the opposite sex. Charles Darwin was the first to suggest that sexual selection played a role in the origin of music. For Darwin, music had no survival benefits but offered a means of impressing potential partners, thereby contributing to reproductive success. For example, male songbirds sing in spring to attract mates. However, we now know there is much more to music’s evolutionary origin than that. For example, most western music in the Middle Ages was performed by apparently celibate monks. And in some cultures, musicians are regarded as lazy with poor marriage prospects.
2. Musical instinct. We are all born with the capacity to be active musicians. Newborn babies acquire music before language. During the first few months, infants and their mothers communicate in a highly expressive (musical form). Research shows that everyone, not just musically trained individuals, has detailed implicit knowledge of the musical forms and styles of their culture (Montagu, 2017). Nearly everyone in the world can follow a rhythmic pattern, clap or dance in time, remember a melody, and identify an emotion associated with the music they like.
3. Music as a universal language. Music is often regarded as a ‘language of emotions.’ People who have difficulty expressing their feelings in words sometimes feel more comfortable expressing these emotions through music. Music has the capacity to mimic emotions. The temporal patterns of music mirror our emotional lives, such as the introduction, buildup, climax, and closure. For example, a slow tempo naturally conveys sadness, because it has a structural resemblance with the slowness that we might expect in a sad individual.
4. Emotion regulation. Music can regulate mood (cheer us up or calm us down), influence shopping decisions, and express actions in a movie. For example, in Pyscho's shower scene, the screeching violin is a famous theme that evokes a very distinct reaction. Young people use music to convey and reflect their feelings, to change their emotional state, and to regulate their mood. Moreover, music can make a difficult task more tolerable. Listening to music has a strong element of keeping workers (or students) happy when doing repetitive and otherwise boring work.
5. Music as a source of pleasure. Music not only expresses emotion, but it can produce emotional responses in people. This explains why people participate in music-making or music listening. In humans, emotional responses to music are mediated by the dopamine system. Dopamine is a pleasure-inducing neurotransmitter associated with food, sex, and drugs).
6. Social bonding. Music has the capacity to bring people together. Music leads to bonding, bonding between mother and child, bonding between groups who are working together or who are together for any other purpose. We are happier when we participate in the music-making or when we dance.
7. Cognitive performance. Learning to sing or play a musical instrument changes the structure of the brain. Music outlives language. For people living with dementia, music can trigger memories and even recall a sense of self. Research shows that for older people listening to music was superior to audiobooks in improving or recovering verbal memory and focusing attention (Särkämö, 2018).