Everywhere in the world, the voices directed towards human babies are high pitched, with a wide range of changes, elongated vowels, and numerous repetitions. A baby, who is born with an absolute sense of pitch, listens to these musical voices coming from the surrounding people and feels secure, as if being embraced by their mother.
When a human child turns three years old and comes to understand the meaning of words, their sense of absolute pitch is lost and replaced with a sense of relative pitch. This is because the meaning of words should not change due to the pitch of the sound.* Perhaps lullabies have improved human musical ability.
■References (Books, papers, Web articles, etc.)
Beethoven’s Anvil : Music in Mind and Culture William Benzon Basic Books (October 17, 2002)
The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body Steven Mithen Harvard University Press (October 31, 2007)
*There is no difference in a word’s meaning due to a difference in the pitch at which it is uttered—the meaning is not defined by the pitch and so the meaning does not change. For example, striking a tuning fork produces the sound of “la” of the solfège (do, re, mi) scale. Try making this sound yourself: “la.” Then, try to sing “la” one octave lower: “la.” We recognize that the first “la” and the second “la” are different, but we know it is the same “la.” This is thanks to relative pitch. It is possible, however, that the difference between the relative sense of pitch and the absolute sense of pitch was critical to the evolution of human “social intelligence.” That is to say that, while recognizing sounds as being different, it is possible to simultaneously recognize them as being the same. This is the human ability of “abstraction.” The human brain’s ability of abstraction was the starting point for the human “cognitive revolution” (the acquisition of cognitive mobility) and “communication revolution.” [Editorial note]
Related iCards： Language and cognitive fluidity (Vol 2.) ／The “creative explosion” (Vol 2.)
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