Bryant Gregory A, Smaldino Paul E
Department of Communication, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA.
UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2025 Apr 3;380(1923):20240014. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2024.0014.
Music traditions worldwide are subject to remarkable diversity but the origins of this variation are not well understood. Musical behaviour is the product of a multicomponent collection of abilities, some possibly evolved for music but most derived from traits serving nonmusical functions. Cultural evolution has stitched together these systems, generating variable normative practices across cultures and musical genres. Here, we describe the cultural evolution of musical distortion, a noisy manipulation of instrumental and vocal timbre that emulates nonlinear phenomena (NLP) present in the vocal signals of many animals. We suggest that listeners' sensitivity to NLP has facilitated technological developments for altering musical instruments and singing with distortion, which continues to evolve culturally via the need for groups to both coordinate internally and differentiate themselves from other groups. To support this idea, we present an agent-based model of norm evolution illustrating possible dynamics of continuous traits such as timbral distortion in music, dependent on (i) a functional optimum, (ii) intra-group cohesion and inter-group differentiation and (iii) groupishness for assortment and social learning. This account illustrates how cultural transmission dynamics can lead to diversity in musical sounds and genres, and also provides a more general explanation for the emergence of subgroup-differentiating norms.This article is part of the theme issue 'Nonlinear phenomena in vertebrate vocalizations: mechanisms and communicative functions'.
世界各地的音乐传统存在显著差异，但其差异根源却尚未得到充分理解。音乐行为是多种能力的综合产物，其中一些能力可能是为音乐而进化的，但大多数源自具有非音乐功能的特征。文化进化将这些系统整合在一起，在不同文化和音乐流派中产生了多样的规范实践。在此，我们描述了音乐失真的文化进化，这是一种对乐器和人声音色的嘈杂操控，模仿了许多动物发声信号中存在的非线性现象（NLP）。我们认为，听众对NLP的敏感度推动了改变乐器和进行失真演唱的技术发展，这种发展通过群体内部协调以及与其他群体区分开来的需求，在文化上持续演变。为支持这一观点，我们提出了一个基于主体的规范进化模型，展示了音乐中诸如音色失真等连续特征的可能动态变化，该变化取决于：（i）功能最优值；（ii）群体内部凝聚力和群体间差异；（iii）用于分类和社会学习的群体偏好。这一解释说明了文化传播动态如何导致音乐声音和流派的多样性，也为亚群体区分规范的出现提供了更普遍的解释。本文是主题为“脊椎动物发声中的非线性现象：机制与交流功能”的一部分。
