The Biology of Music: Interdisciplinary Insights

What is music when viewed as a biological phenomenon, and how does that perspective shape our understanding of ourselves? The Biology of Music offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of musicality as a biologically grounded yet culturally shaped human capacity. While music itself is a product of culture, the ability to perceive, process, and produce music--known as musicality--has deep evolutionary roots and intersects with nearly every domain of human experience.

Edited by Andrea Ravignani, this volume brings together leading scholars from evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology, neurobiology, developmental psychology, artificial intelligence, musicology, and related fields. Their twelve original chapters trace the emergence and development of musicality across individuals and species, exploring its evolutionary origins and its possible coevolution with emotion, ritual, communication, and social cohesion.

Organized into three thematic sections, the book examines musical universals and early ontogeny; cross-species comparisons and the biocultural evolution of musicality; and theoretical models that account for how musical capacities arise and diversify. Contributors engage with topics such as musicking across species, systems evolution, evo-devo approaches, and the interplay between biological predispositions and cultural environments. Rather than imposing a single explanatory framework, the volume highlights the value of dialogue--between disciplines, between biological and cultural perspectives, and between empirical findings and conceptual models. The result is a rigorous yet accessible synthesis that reflects the growing momentum toward a biologically informed musicology and a culturally literate biomusicology.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0197775063
• ISBN13: 9780197775066
• Release Date: September 2026
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.7" x 8.2"