why does certain races have more rhythm than others

[mansamusa]

????

 

also also another good question about sound is why are asian people usually better at identifying specific musical notes than other peoples. i know its related to pitch and that asian people seem to use pitch a lot more in their speech to stress different syllables

[Ringer]

First, cite the source that you are getting this from, because far from all Asian languages are tonal.

[overtone]

Why does certain races have more rhythm than others?

This was posted under "Genetics" - what genetic "races" are you talking about, how did you identify them genetically, and how did you measure the quantity of rhythm they have?

 

also also another good question about sound is why are asian people usually better at identifying specific musical notes than other peoples.

Again, as we are in a forum labeled "Genetics", who exactly are you identifying as genetically "Asian", and how did you do that?

 

 

 

 

[mansamusa]

Afro-American as it oppose to asian etc.

[Phi for All]

Afro-American as it oppose to asian etc.

As overtone has noted, there are no races genetically within the overall human "race". What you're talking about is strictly a cultural phenomena. Raise anyone in a culture where music and rhythm are encouraged and you'll have a human with more of a sense of rhythm than a human not raised in that culture.

[Ringer]

Afro-American as it oppose to asian etc.

That's even less helpful.

[mansamusa]

As overtone has noted, there are no races genetically within the overall human "race". What you're talking about is strictly a cultural phenomena. Raise anyone in a culture where music and rhythm are encouraged and you'll have a human with more of a sense of rhythm than a human not raised in that culture.

 

okay someone gave me this answer would you agree with this :

 

 

There is a theory that peoples that lived in grassland savannas tend to have more intricate musical patterns than peoples that lived in other terrains. The thought being that grassland and lowland savannas by nature tend to allow sound to travel further and more accurately. This is thought relevant due to hunter gatherers leaving the homesite further and further away and over time using chants, percussions and "music" as a communicative network with the homesite.. Over time, this disposition toward chants, pervussions and music proves beneficial and is made more complex to communicate more complicated messages...thus over time providing survival value that can be refined and passed fown through darwinian and mendelian mechanisms.

[Phi for All]

There is a theory that peoples that lived in grassland savannas tend to have more intricate musical patterns than peoples that lived in other terrains. The thought being that grassland and lowland savannas by nature tend to allow sound to travel further and more accurately. This is thought relevant due to hunter gatherers leaving the homesite further and further away and over time using chants, percussions and "music" as a communicative network with the homesite.. Over time, this disposition toward chants, pervussions and music proves beneficial and is made more complex to communicate more complicated messages...thus over time providing survival value that can be refined and passed fown through darwinian and mendelian mechanisms.

Can you give a scientific citation for this "theory" that doesn't stem from a music fan site? Or by theory do you mean "an idea somebody came up with in the shower that sounds pretty believable"?

[overtone]

There is a theory that peoples that lived in grassland savannas tend to have more intricate musical patterns than peoples that lived in other terrains. The thought being that grassland and lowland savannas by nature tend to allow sound to travel further and more accurately.

So where do the "races" come in?

 

All the sociological races have representative grassland and lowland cultures, as far as I know. And all of them include cultures with intricate music, non-intricate music, and so forth.

 

Some of the most intricate folk music I know of comes from the forested and mountainous regions of central and northern Europe. Meanwhile, the Tuvans and neighboring Mongols (the type specimens of open grassland dwellers) created music that although very profound and complex is not at all "intricate". Neither is the music of the NA Plains aborigines, or the Australian grassland nomads.

 

Come to think of it, we do have a pattern here: people who ride horses and depend on them tend to have less intricate music than those who don't. Again, not sure where the business about "race" fits in.

 

Whose theory is this, and why does it exist?

 

[John Cuthber]

It doesn't sound plausible to me.

In particular, this bit

"The thought being that grassland and lowland savannas by nature tend to allow sound to travel further and more accurately."

seems at odds with reality.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbo_Gomero_language

[mansamusa]

actually this is something i came across online (in reference to the theory)

[Ringer]

There is a theory that peoples that lived in grassland savannas tend to have more intricate musical patterns than peoples that lived in other terrains. The thought being that grassland and lowland savannas by nature tend to allow sound to travel further and more accurately. This is thought relevant due to hunter gatherers leaving the homesite further and further away and over time using chants, percussions and "music" as a communicative network with the homesite.. Over time, this disposition toward chants, pervussions and music proves beneficial and is made more complex to communicate more complicated messages...thus over time providing survival value that can be refined and passed fown through darwinian and mendelian mechanisms.

 

I've never seen such a theory, or evidence to support such a theory. Please provide some so no one thinks you're just blowing smoke. Why would hunter gatherers use chants during a hunt or while gathering? Constant communication is unnecessary during both those things and a chant would just give away your position to prey. It would be completely ridiculous for us to 'sing' while hunting, if you don't think so try it and see if you get anything. We didn't need music as a communicative network, we had speech. Since speech and music would travel relatively the same distance and speech would not need anything extra to be produced it wouldn't be very likely everyone communicated through music. Don't think just because we do things they were beneficial to reproduction at one time stuff gets left in or produced unnecessarily all the time.

 

TLDR; Give evidence, and your idea is stretching even an adaptationist viewpoint to the extreme.

[Phi for All]

actually this is something i came across online (in reference to the theory)

Right, you copied it from here: http://www.wutang-corp.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2284637 (you should always link to things you copy/paste so the original author gets credit for it).

 

The point is, anyone can say, "There is a theory...", but on a science site like this theory is much more than just someone's opinion of what may have taken place. I could find no studies online to support this idea, much less the kind of work that would go into an actual theory.

[mansamusa]

Right, you copied it from here: http://www.wutang-co...d.php?p=2284637 (you should always link to things you copy/paste so the original author gets credit for it).

 

The point is, anyone can say, "There is a theory...", but on a science site like this theory is much more than just someone's opinion of what may have taken place. I could find no studies online to support this idea, much less the kind of work that would go into an actual theory.

 

actually found it on another site but i see your point and thanks

[overtone]

Continuing the comparison with physical reality, after noting above the absence of great intricacy of rhythm in the music of a wide variety of grassland dwellers on various continents: AFAIK the most rhythmically intricate folk music around is the drum chorus music of Burundi and neighboring regions to the west, through the African rain forest to the west coast - these are not primarily open and spacious grassland environs, but feature heavy jungle and/or rugged terrain: http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/africa/burundi/biland.htm

 

Great rhythmic intricacy in folk music is also found in the monsoon agriculture regions of India (ragas and other music in that tradition have intricate rhythms delivered by highly skilled drummers), and the mountain terrain (terraced, often) rice regions of Bali and neighboring islands (Gamelan orchestras play inticate music in general, includign rhythm).

 

No correlation with even sociological race is visible to me, nor any relationship with grassland and open country other than agricultural fields.

[Bill Angel]

One idea suggests itself about how such ideas could be researched. Scientists use MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) devices to study how the brain responds to stimuli. A person could be evaluated to determine how well they can identify rhythmic sequences while an MRI machine determines which areas of their brain are active. Perhaps scientists will find that members of certain ethnic groups do better than others at this task, and differences in performance correlate with different patterns of brain activity. I mention this because I had the chance to participate in a similar kind of study involving word identification, with my head stuck in an MRI machine.

Edited December 5, 2012 by Bill Angel

[overtone]

Perhaps scientists will find that members of certain ethnic groups do better than others at this task,

This will be so almost certainly.

 

But the original assertion specifically keyed on "races", not ethnic groups.