How humans evolved music | Michael Spitzer

**🎵 The Cosmic Joke of Human Music: Are We the Least Musical Animals?**

Despite our rich symphonies and emotional ballads, humans may be *the least* naturally musical species. Unlike birds that *creatively learn new songs* and insects that *pulse in perfect rhythm*, our ape ancestors lacked musicality. So how did we end up here—singing, dancing, composing?

🎼 Music wasn’t inherited. It was reinvented.

Humans, through evolution—bipedalism, brain growth, vocal range—built music from scratch. Rhythm came from walking upright. Emotion came from mirror neurons. Our oversized brains made room for play, nuance, and infinite sound-making. Where animals sing for function, humans began to sing for *pleasure*.

🌌 Even NASA’s Golden Record—a mixtape for aliens—poses the question:

Can you hear *humanity* in Bach, Chuck Berry, or gamelan?

Maybe. Because human music, though crafted, echoes the animal world. It repeats in layers like birdsong. It evokes danger like a predator’s growl. But it also does what no animal music can—it expresses *who we are*.

💔 Music became our emotional fingerprint, more precise than words, more primal than speech. We mirror sadness in melody, feel danger in dissonance, and discover identity in rhythm.

And yet... Humans have always felt a quiet envy toward the birds.

Their song is natural.

Ours is *manufactured magic*.

But perhaps that's what makes it so beautifully human.

-------------------------

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices