ABSTRACT

Music making is fundamentally a social activity. Musicians perform together and strive for temporal synchronization, shared expressive musical intentions, and sound qualities or greater intensity through a higher number of instruments or voices. Ensemble music consists of, and affords, social interactions and interpersonal relations. Evolutionary theories of musical origins assume that enhanced coordination in bodily movement was among the key advantages of joint music making (Merker, 2000); For instance, various types of labor are carried out more efficiently if they are rhythmically synchronized. The discovery of several instruments such as bone flutes at prehistoric sites suggests that music making has long been a group activity, undoubtedly also including vocal and percussion performances (Huron, 2001).