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Interdisciplinary connections between
Evolution, Music, Language, And Reading

The Science of Why Using Music to Teach Children Works.

Connections Between Speech and Song

Music is Language, Language is Music: Book

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Evolution

 

  • EVOLUTION OF INTERSPECIES ANIMAL LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION, EVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE SHOWS THE ROOTS OF LANGUAGE
  • THE SINGING NEANDERTHAL Read Text
  • Singing for your Supper Wild gorillas compose happy songs that they hum during meals Luef identified two different types of sound that the gorillas sometimes made when eating. One of them was humming - a steady low-frequency tone that sounds a bit like a sigh of contentment. “They don't sing the same song over and over,” says Luef. “It seems like they are composing their little food songs.” Because there is so much variation in calls both between individuals and species, food calls provide a good way to study the origin of language, says Clay. “It gives a good insight into the origin of meaning in animal signals, and also the social pressures that might drive the flexibility we see in language,” she says.
  • SINGING FISH
    teaching biologists and neuroscientists a lot about speech and hearing. Our own speech and song owe a lot to the ancient grunts and hums of midshipman fish. Studying how midshipman fish call and respond to one another has taught scientists about the evolution of vocal communication and the neurobiology of hearing. The fundamental structure of the brain circuit he traced was remarkably similar to neural circuits in corresponding brain regions in amphibians, birds and mammals. Because toadfish first evolved so long ago, Bass concluded that this particular neural circuit is likely 400 million years old—almost as old as vertebrates themselves. In one study, Andrew Bass of Cornell University traced the development of the midshipman fish nervous system and brain, focusing on neurons that control their sonic muscles. The finned crooner in question is the plainfin midshipman fish (Porichthys notatus), which belongs to a family of fish known as toadfish. They are vocal, emitting short grunts to communicate with one another, but Type 1 males are the most voluble by far. In the spring and summer, Type 1 males head to shallow waters, excavate nests beneath rocks along the shoreline, hunker down and start to sing, using sonic muscles surrounding their inflatable swim bladders to hum for up to an hour at a time. This humming, which people have described a droning motorboat or an orchestra of mournful oboes, is so loud that it has been known to wake houseboat owners in San Francisco and Sausalito Hormones fine-tune the humming toadfish / High levels of estrogen found in the most responsive females (Listen to a clip of the humming here).
  • Explore the underwater origins of vocal communication, as well as whether fish were the first animals to evolve some common non-vocal gestures.

Music

Language

LANGUAGE IS MUSIC AND MUSIC IS LANGUAGE

Listen to Piraha sung speech - two boys singing about a day's events

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  • INTRODUCTION TO THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE
  • Rhythmic patterns underlie the human language
    Musical Roots lie in the human voice. READING AND RHYMING GAMES are good. The better infants are at distinguishing the different parts of words, the better they will be later using more complex language, researchers say. Learn to wire the brain to be calm and attentive by using music and speech.
  • Evolution of Speech is associated with the auditory sense, and is not closely tied to the world of objects or other people. It is the most widely and democratically shared across humans, and is the most thoroughly studied intelligence. The origin of language. Communication evolved hand-in-hand with social bonding. "The work tells us that communication is right there at the base of social behaviour and that having a larger vocal repertoire allows you to have a more complex social set up," says Karen McComb, at the University of Sussex, UK.
  • Before Speech is Gesture - Babies Can Learn Words as Early as 10 Months

Reading

Interdisciplinary Curriculum