Natural Musicians

The study of the melodic expressions of other animals arises questions and as many lines of research that help us to understand better, the origins of the musical ability. To avoid confusions it is necessary to distinguish the matters inherent in the basic mechanisms involved in the musical ability (i.e. evolutionary change, neurophysiological substratum), from those of evolutionary function (adaptive significance) and history (phylogeny). One of the matters on which the research efforts are assembled is to understand if birds, whales, gibbons and human beings uses same neural network and comparable neurochemical balance when they sing, and in particular if this ability may influence their reproductive performances (fitness) and therefore the propagation of the genes in the following generations. Probably, the understanding and the resolution of these issues could lead to a better overall view for the evaluation of the characteristics of the evolutionary history of music systems (Hauser 2001). While some areas of research aiming to demonstrate the possible emotional component that might undelies in vocalizations and the potential appreciation of the “human” kind of music in primates (as it has been observed from studies of preference for consonant sounds, (Mcdermott & Hauser 2003), my approach is characterized by a not-anthropocentric interpretation of these questions, trying to carry out a survey on the actual content of calls in nonhuman primates in species-specific context evaluating its ecological and adaptative value.