Embodiment, Music, and Human Evolution

Music is a human universal and, as such, it has evolutionary roots that must be investigated within the natural history of our phylogenetic changes. Theories in extended cognition suggest that what we call “mind” is a process associated with a flow of information between brain, body, and environment. Technology is, in this sense, part of the process, and not simply the product of cerebral activity. In humans, neuroplasticity may have enhanced the ability to integrate tools into the body balance and, subsequently, into the neural body scheme. Musical instruments would be, in this case, peripheral devices, employed to delegate and extend perceptual and cognitive functions to extrasomatic elements. Many musical instruments require a consistent structural integration with the body, involving proprioceptive, exteroceptive, and interoceptive integration. The human capacity to integrate body and technology (a so-called “prosthetic ability”) can have facilitated the transformation of exotelic behaviors, associated with tool use and finalistic production, into autotelic behaviors, associated with individual reward and collective bonds. The body becomes even part of the musical instrument itself, further blending the emotional and social aspects. Interpreting the origin of music in terms of embodiment can offer a complementary view of our technological and artistic abilities that, beyond tool use and toolmaking, accounts for a preliminary (and crucial) component: tool sensing.