Dr Victor Grauer, based in Pittsburgh, PA, is a composer, musicologist, film‑maker, media artist, poet and dramatist. He was co-creator, with Alan Lomax, of the Cantometrics coding system in 1961 and worked on the Cantometrics Project as Research Associate, under Lomax’s supervision, from 1963 until 1966. His creative work has been presented in many venues worldwide and his writings on musicology and the arts have been published in several journals. Sounding the Depths may be the first truly interactive book ever published. Inspired by many years of research on world music, and drawing upon dramatic new developments in genetic anthropology and archaeology, the book takes the reader “on a journey through some of the deepest recesses of human culture and history, suggesting solutions to mysteries that, until recently, were thought to be completely beyond the reach of systematic investigation”. soundingthedepths.blogspot.it
In recent decades, the horizons of our past have extended immensely. Once History with a capital “H” was considered a tale based on a certain type of facts and documents, and everything that didn’t fit that filter was considered “prehistory”. Then over the last thirty years, genetic and palaeoanthropological research has taught us to consider mitochondrial DNA, Y chromosome, a human being’s tooth, a tool fragment, a rock painting as “historical documents” too. We started to take the clock of History and culture back in time, we managed to unravel the birth of the Homo Sapiens.
We discovered that central-eastern Africa is his one place of origin, and we understood that small groups of Sapiens gradually moved from there, around Africa and then towards the Indian continent, until, a few tens of thousands of years later, they came to populate the whole of the earth. Scholars mapped the big language families, identified the great junctures in the evolution of culture, traced the routes followed in our conquest of the globe and outlined the lifestyle of our hunter-gatherer forefathers.
However, there’s one big piece missing from this rich and thrilling picture: music. The communities of Sapiens 50,000 or 40,000 years ago seem to have been immersed in silence. Maybe they sang, but what? There exist flutes found in Germany dating from 30,000 years ago, made of bones and with five notes. But earlier still might they have built flutes from bamboo that have been lost today? And the dances?
The history of traditional music doesn’t help. It is still imbibed in positivist pseudo-evolutionism, hence it starts from a “primitive” music, with simple vocal and rhythmic forms, which then evolves following successive stages of complexity, as if it were a living organism and not a cultural product. One thing is sure: that it’s no mean feat to create the history of music from DNA and a fragment of bone, but Victor Grauer, in his book Sounding the Depths, showed us that it can indeed be done. It is possible to understand how we lived 50,000 years ago, and therefore also how we sang. Grauer shows that we can start from music to understand what makes us human. The traces of those cultures have not disappeared: they survive today in the customs of certain populations, in certain languages and even in certain musical practices. By using DNA to select the most ancient populations that have survived to the present day, by assessing the Sapiens’ forms of transmission and cultural change, we can imagine the songs of our forebears and hear their echo in the music of the present-day Khoisan and Pygmy populations of southern and central Africa, or the populations of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Caucasus, Georgia, or even the Basque countries.
From this starting point he has made the most sensational discoveries. Our music was born complex, polyphonic, with a crossover of voices. We would yodel, singing certain notes in falsetto; we built pan flutes made of canes to blow and also sing into; we might have counted uneven rhythms, we definitely marked time with twigs or by clapping our hands, or by attaching bells to our ankles. We definitely didn’t use drums, which are a product of the Neolithic age, and suited to stationary populations who were not forced to continually travel. We danced together, also in front of large ritual bonfires, lit for exceptional occasions in which meat could be eaten.
Eastern Africa was therefore the backdrop for a lively society, which very often sang in chorus. But not everyone was able to follow the same melody, as would happen in the Neolithic era. No, a crossover was preferred in which everyone sang a fragment, the fragments were put together, one on top of the other, and the ear heard a single weave of strands. A very sophisticated, complex practice, still testified to today in many corners of the world where Sapiens arrived thousands of years ago and remained isolated from other cultures (on islands, in forests, in mountains). When we weren’t singing in chorus, we were playing with canons: you know Frère Jacques which everyone sings staggered? Well, that’s one of the most archaic forms of musical game. And the same techniques were applied to flutes and horns, as we danced in a circle, stamping our feet.
Of course music then spread and diversified from that archaic African core. Grauer also tells us how the first great cultural divergence took place when the volcano Toba exploded around 60,000 years ago in south-east Asia, causing an environmental catastrophe of such proportions as to threaten the extinction of humankind. After that apocalypse some humans set off towards northern Asia. In the following millennia they would give rise to different religious and musical cultures. Elsewhere the African archaic cultures continued to survive and over the millennia the two great currents mixed, generating the modes of expression that we know today. Cultures change, but when we sing or dance, that distant Africa spark still burns inside of us.
Stefano Zenni
ByCartography: Where does music come from? Why did man create it? Why did man start playing music? How did it all start?
Victor Grauer: First we need to think about what is meant by the term “music.” For me, there are three different types of music, each with its own history – though all are now closely related.
1. Vocal music: originating, apparently, in the hooted vocalizations of primate ancestors of modern humans – especially a certain type of vocalization where two or more individuals closely coordinate their calls, in a manner very much like what is now called “hocket” – i.e., a type of interactive singing (or playing) where a melody or a tonal pattern is divided between two or more performers, as for example in a bell choir. Bonobos, gibbons and even certain species of lemur hocket by calling back and forth in a regular rhythm, but sometimes in a more complex type of coordinated group interlocking. Interlocking hocket is also characteristic of Pygmy and Bushmen singing in Africa, which for me probably represents the earliest type of music among “modern” humans, going back roughly 100,000 years or more. I see a possible continuity between the hooted hocketing of certain primates and the yodeled hocketing of these two African groups. These possibilities are explained in much more detail in my book.
2. Tuned instrumental music: I think it possible that the earliest type of pitched instrumental music could have been derived from attempts to imitate bird calls for hunting purposes by blowing on reed pipes. When such pipes are overblown by breathing more heavily into them, one hears higher notes that are related to the lower ones according to the circle of fifths and the overtone series, which is the basis for musical tuning. These tunings could then have been picked up by the singers, which would explain the rational pitch organization found so widely in almost all music, both instrumental and vocal.
3. Percussion: most likely derived from striking objects such as trees with the hands or feet, and clapping the hands together, practices widely found among certain primates.
Why has man handed music down from one generation to another?
Here we need to understand the tremendous power of a concept that anthropologists too often take for granted: tradition. Once music (and dance) became established as a tradition in Africa, among the ancestors of all modern humans, the tradition was then passed on, along with many other cultural traditions, to their many descendants, who eventually populated the world. As I see it, this and other traditions can be traced back to their origins in a direct line from Africa – assuming of course that the “Out of Africa” model is correct. During the course of history, the original style of music making was altered in many ways, but certain fundamental properties remain, as evidence of derivation from a common ancestor.
Why was music important?
I think it originally had an adaptive value thanks to its connection with the origin of language. Since in my view the earliest speech was probably tonal, then those with the best sense of pitch would have had an advantage and from a Darwinian perspective would have been more likely to pass on their genes. Even today, a Pygmy or Bushman who happens to be tone deaf would be at a very serious disadvantage since group singing is so important in these societies. Another feature of music that would have promoted its survival is its powerful ability to organize and coordinate groups, either as ensembles of performers, or as dancers or even passive listeners. As group coordination is important to survival, music could have been a very useful tool toward that end. At this time in history, music is no longer essential to individual survival, as someone who can’t participate can still do very well in other realms. But it is obviously very important for the survival of groups, and tends to bring together like minded people in very powerful ways, even today.
What were the very first (natural/artificial) instruments?
The very first were probably simple percussion instruments, such as logs or stones struck together. As for pitched instruments, my best guess is that the first were probably reed pipes, because they are easily tuned through overblowing, and could have been used as lures to hunt birds.
Were the first songs made of sounds or were they made of words?
That’s an excellent question. From the research I’ve done, which points to the singing of the African Pygmies and Bushmen as representing homo sapiens’ earliest music, I would say it’s the sounds, not the words. Pygmy and Bushmen singing is mostly with meaningless vocables, with only a very few words that tend to be repeated over and over. There is good reason to believe that speech derived from singing, especially since almost all African languages are tone languages, and can often be communicated simply by singing or whistling (or drumming), with no articulated speech necessary.
What were they about?
The few words used in Pygmy and Bushmen singing usually relate to certain animals or else certain rituals – often both.
Tell us about your work with Lomax. Do you have any anecdotes about your time with him?
There are many. Some day I’d like to write a book about Lomax and the work we did together, and his very deep influence on me. I never did fieldwork with him, unfortunately. The work we did together was based mostly on recordings that had already been made by himself and others. One thing many people might not know about Lomax was his very impressive erudition. He had a huge collection of books and was very knowledgeable in many areas, especially psychology, linguistics, kinesics, and anthropology. He also had a wide circle of very interesting friends, some of whom I was able to meet. For example, the great bluegrass artist Bill Monroe spent some time at Lomax’s office one afternoon in order to rest a bit before his evening performance. I had an opportunity to speak with him for a while and learned something very interesting that few people know about. He was getting bored with bluegrass and had some ideas for a completely new type of music. But unfortunately never had the time to develop it properly because of his active touring schedule. When I suggested he could apply for a grant, he rejected that possibility because it would force him to disband his group and put his musicians out of work, which he was unwilling to do. I was very impressed with his attitude and also his demeanor, which was very serious and sincere. He never looked me in the eye once the whole time we talked.
Can you imagine the music of the future? What will it be like?
I once wrote a long essay on this question, some time ago. My predictions turned out to be completely wrong. I had great hopes for the future of experimental music and electronic music, some of which resonated with certain types of indigenous music I admired. Instead, music went in the other direction, back toward more conventional practices, which I did not anticipate and which bothered me for a long time. What I see now and what will most likely continue into the future is an emphasis more on craft than anything else. The computer was once considered a path to experimentation with new sounds and new concepts (as in the IRCAM experiment by Boulez), but now it’s simply a tool for all sorts of more or less traditional composition. As a result of composers being able to work more easily thanks to the computer, and hear their music immediately through synthesized sounds, craftsmanship is improving greatly, which is not such a bad thing. My own craftsmanship has certainly improved as a result of this wonderful prosthetic tool, which enables me to hear my music even more clearly than Beethoven when he was totally deaf.