Theorizing Music Evolution

In the resurgent field of evolutionary musicology, Miriam Piilonen's critical account of the views of Darwin, Spencer, and Edmund Gurney is a cogent, sometimes pessimistic, always welcome intervention. Highlighting the biases and limitations of nineteenth-century evolutionism and listening for their echoes today, she offers correctives for just-so stories told and retold: about music's adaptive benefits, its primordial anticipation of language, its gendered production and impact, and, most generally, its progress. * Gary Tomlinson, author of A Million Years of Music: The Emergence of Human Modernity * The pioneers of evolution, great Victorians like Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin, thought long and hard about music. As an experience, it both puzzled and amazed them. Yet they strongly disagreed about its origins and purpose. The issues raised in their discussions have recently resurfaced, so Piilonen's new book, Theorizing Music Evolution, is both a welcome resource and a gentle caution lest we unknowingly resurrect the problematic presuppositions of our scientific ancestors. * Robert O. Gjerdingen, Emeritus Professor at Northwestern University * Piilonen's book sheds light on the surprising similarities between the Victorian tendency to view music as a metonym for evolution and our modern tendencies to continue doing so. Such a robust intellectual history stands as a vital addition to the current fields of music theory, evolutionary musicology, and posthumanism. * Brad Osborn, author of Everything in its Right Place: Analyzing Radiohead * In this brilliant, incisive book, Miriam Piilonen shows that nineteenth-century evolutionists such as Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer remain relevant today. Their speculative, often biased theories reverberate in discussions of culture and biology, voice, emotion, embodiment, music-language relations, gender and sexuality, and ultimately, the very definitions of music and humanity. Theorizing Music Evolution will be thought-provoking reading for music scholars, psychologists, and anyone curious about the origins and functions of music. * Jonathan De Souza, Associate Professor of Music Theory, University of Western Ontario * Piilonen's book deepens our understanding of nineteenth-century thinking on music and evolution. She explores the nuances of Darwin's ideas on the topic and shows how his ideas are entwined with others such as Spencer and Gurney and enmeshed in English Victorian ideologies. Based on this analysis, Piilonen raises timely issues for contemporary research on the evolution of human musicality. * Aniruddh D. Patel, author of Music, Language, and the Brain *