Music may be the activity that prepared our pre-human ancestors for speech communication and for the very cognitive, representational flexibility necessary to become humans.
Interpretation
Music played a crucial role in the evolution of human communication and cognitive abilities.
The quote by Daniel Levitin suggests that music is not merely an art form but a fundamental activity that might have been essential in the development of early human communication and complex thinking. By engaging with music, our ancestors could have honed their skills in speech and the cognitive flexibility required for more sophisticated forms of interaction, thus paving the way for what it means to be human.
In practice
In a lecture about the role of art in human development, one could use this quote to illustrate the significance of music in fostering communication.
As soon as you hear a proposition, the creative brain in humans assumes for the moment that it's true, and starts trying to find evidence. It's what computer scientists in the old days used to call 'Fifo:' first in, first out. The first piece of information that gets in has a privileged position, even if it's misinformation.
What music is better able to do than language is to represent the complexity of human emotional states.
Information overload refers to the notion that we're trying to take in more than the brain can handle.
That walk around the block, that fresh air, is going to help you work more quickly and effectively when you get back.
There are a lot of books about how to get organized and a lot of books about how to be better and more productive at business, but I don't know of one that grounds any of these in the science.
There's an ancient connection between movement and music. Most languages don't make a distinction between the words 'music' and 'dance.' And we can see that in the brain. When people are lying perfectly still but listening to music, the neurons in the motor cortex are firing.
But all art is sensual and poetry particularly so. It is directly, that is, of the senses, and since the senses do not exist without an object for their employment all art is necessarily objective. It doesn't declaim or explain, it presents.
If you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn't flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work.
The novel is a territory where one does not make assertions; it is a territory of play and of hypotheses.
No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly...and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it.
Next to him lay his violin, trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse.
I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot.
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