riatree:

READ. READ. READ. If you like music, just read. A good article.

Simian songs specifically designed to appeal to monkeys have been composed by scientists, in an experiment that sheds new light on the evolutionary origins of Man’s taste for music.

Cotton-top tamarin monkeys, who normally turn a deaf ear to music, show marked changes in mood when they are played tunes composed with their voices and hearing in mind, research has shown.

The findings suggest that the historical roots of human appreciation of music may stretch deep into our evolutionary past, to the common ancestors we share with monkeys.

The way in which different types of music invoke different emotional responses, such as calming people down or psyching them up, could be related to the way other primates react to the calls of other group members…