Timodal displays exist that seem intuitively to be dance-like, e.g.

Timodal displays exist that seem intuitively to be dance-like, e.g. the `stiff walking’ seen during aggressive display in red deer, accompanied by roaring, or the `swaggering’ gait, with full piloerection, often seen during pant-hoot displays in chimpanzees, are quite difficult to quantify, but deserve further study. Although animal `dancing’ behaviours remain relatively unexplored, particularly in the context of bio-musicology, I suggest that accepting dance as a core component of human musicality will open the door to further fruitful comparisons, uncovering both analogues and possible homologues in other PD168393MedChemExpress PD168393 species. More generally, I suggest that bio-musicology will profit greatly by explicitly incorporating dance into discussions of the biology and evolution of human music. It is time to recognize dance as a full peer of song or drumming in human expressions of musicality.rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 370:4. ConclusionIn closing, I re-emphasize that both the principles and components discussed in this essay are offered as starting points. I fully expect, and hope, that as the field of biomusicology progresses more principles will be developed, or the ones presented here augmented and refined. In particular, the four-component breakdown I have given above is just one way to `slice the pie’ of musicality, developed specifically for the purposes of fruitful comparisons among species. Two other important multicomponent analyses include the search for musical universals of various types (see below), and the attempt to break music into `design features’ which allow a matrix of comparisons between music and other human cognitive features (such as language or architecture) and with other animal communication systems, following Hockett [129]. Hockett’s list of design features of language provided an important starting point for subsequent research in animal communication, and elsewhere I have offered a list of musical design features extending his [26,130]. My list includes some features that are shared with language (such as generativity and complexity) as well as features that differentiate most music from language (such as the use of discrete pitches, or of isochronic rhythms), but shorter lists of musical design features have also been proposed [131]. The `design feature’ approach focuses on characteristics of music rather than on the cognitive abilities making up musicality, but may be preferable in cases where we have empirical access only to surface behaviours. There is thus plenty of room for expansion and exploration of this feature-based approach to analysing musicality into component parts. Another important alternative approach to analysing the components underlying musicality is much older, and much more controversial: the search for musical universals. This was a core desideratum of the first wave of comparative musicologists, centred in Germany between the wars [132?34]. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions [3,4,135?37], the search for universal principles or traits of music was abandoned after the breakup of this group of researchers by the Nazis. Indeed, in post-war PD168393 site ethnomusicology the very notion of musical universals became somewhat taboo and, in line with prevailing attitudes concerning culture more generally,music was seen as a system free to vary with virtually no constraints (cf. [61,138,139]). But the steady increase in the scientific study of music, particularly music neuroscience and music cogn.Timodal displays exist that seem intuitively to be dance-like, e.g. the `stiff walking’ seen during aggressive display in red deer, accompanied by roaring, or the `swaggering’ gait, with full piloerection, often seen during pant-hoot displays in chimpanzees, are quite difficult to quantify, but deserve further study. Although animal `dancing’ behaviours remain relatively unexplored, particularly in the context of bio-musicology, I suggest that accepting dance as a core component of human musicality will open the door to further fruitful comparisons, uncovering both analogues and possible homologues in other species. More generally, I suggest that bio-musicology will profit greatly by explicitly incorporating dance into discussions of the biology and evolution of human music. It is time to recognize dance as a full peer of song or drumming in human expressions of musicality.rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 370:4. ConclusionIn closing, I re-emphasize that both the principles and components discussed in this essay are offered as starting points. I fully expect, and hope, that as the field of biomusicology progresses more principles will be developed, or the ones presented here augmented and refined. In particular, the four-component breakdown I have given above is just one way to `slice the pie’ of musicality, developed specifically for the purposes of fruitful comparisons among species. Two other important multicomponent analyses include the search for musical universals of various types (see below), and the attempt to break music into `design features’ which allow a matrix of comparisons between music and other human cognitive features (such as language or architecture) and with other animal communication systems, following Hockett [129]. Hockett’s list of design features of language provided an important starting point for subsequent research in animal communication, and elsewhere I have offered a list of musical design features extending his [26,130]. My list includes some features that are shared with language (such as generativity and complexity) as well as features that differentiate most music from language (such as the use of discrete pitches, or of isochronic rhythms), but shorter lists of musical design features have also been proposed [131]. The `design feature’ approach focuses on characteristics of music rather than on the cognitive abilities making up musicality, but may be preferable in cases where we have empirical access only to surface behaviours. There is thus plenty of room for expansion and exploration of this feature-based approach to analysing musicality into component parts. Another important alternative approach to analysing the components underlying musicality is much older, and much more controversial: the search for musical universals. This was a core desideratum of the first wave of comparative musicologists, centred in Germany between the wars [132?34]. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions [3,4,135?37], the search for universal principles or traits of music was abandoned after the breakup of this group of researchers by the Nazis. Indeed, in post-war ethnomusicology the very notion of musical universals became somewhat taboo and, in line with prevailing attitudes concerning culture more generally,music was seen as a system free to vary with virtually no constraints (cf. [61,138,139]). But the steady increase in the scientific study of music, particularly music neuroscience and music cogn.