Nicholas Bannan
Biographic Data
| ID | 194527 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicholas Bannan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicholas |
| FAMILY NAME | Bannan |
| SIGNATURE | BANNAN N |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Western Australia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4781-4947 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Innovative pedagogy for creative musicianship
This article sets out the historical and conceptual development of a new musical pedagogy named Harmony Signing, and the influences that prompted its invention. It represents the first attempt to explain Harmony Signing as a distinct semiotic system. Two factors contributed to the inception of this project: the intention to help primary age children to compose chorally for each other where they had limited existing experience of music notation; a…
Acoustic Processing and the Origin of Human Vocal Communication
Humans have inherited from their remotest mammalian ancestors an integration of the sensory and motor systems that permits the exchange of signals and information, led by an instinctive response to harmonicity. The transition, from capacity for animal communication involving calls, facial expression and gestures, to modern human culture that embraces language, music, and dance, has resulted from anatomical adaptations such as upright posture, a d…
The Evolution of Gender Dimorphism in the Human Voice
Humans exhibit what appears to be a unique vocal property: octave equivalence, whereby adult male voices are, on average, an octave lower in pitch than those of adult females and children. The evolutionary significance of this seems largely to have escaped notice. While sexual selection might explain why male voices are generally lower, it cannot explain why they should be so much lower than what would be expected for body size or why the average…
The Evolution of Music, 2023
Music
Ancient Voices, Contemporary Practice, and Human Musicality
Debate continues regarding the purpose and practice of music in relation to participation, cultural origin, and education internationally. A Darwinian approach that sees musical vocalization as the adaptive bridge between animal communication and human language remains hotly disputed where such a model does not suit the prevailing political or social agenda. The two books under review present contrasting viewpoints and evidence, while their concu…
Two Servants, One Master
This article explores and examines research in the field of human vocalization, proposing an evolutionary sequence for human acoustic perception and productive response. This involves updating and extending Charles Darwin’s 1871 proposal that musical communication predated language, while providing the anatomical and behavioral foundations for the articulacy on which it depends. In presenting evidence on which a new consensus regarding the emerg…
Music
The first half of 2022 has seen further multidisciplinary contributions to the field of music evolution with a particular focus on the related phenomena of pitch perception, harmonicity and the construction of melody. The six publications under review represent stimulating new perspectives both on the general adaptive features of the human capacity for music, and on specific parameters that will inform in turn the work of others working in this f…
Evolutionary Perspectives on Music
Music
Darwin’s Education
Darwin’s Beliefs
Music and Song, Evolutionary Approaches to
New research methods have during the last thirty years focused increased attention on the role of music in culture and its place in the field of anthropology. One model of the evolution of human communication proposes that song may have been the precursor of language. Musical communication may have been the means by which the vocal instrument attained the capacity for the fine‐tuned acoustic productivity necessary for the development of language.…
Darwin, music and evolution
The impression has formed in the literature dealing with Darwin’s life and achievement that he was himself unmusical, and that his theories have offered little help in understanding or valuing the role of music in human society. This article draws on biographical information relating to Darwin’s family and household to illustrate that he was in fact surrounded by music throughout his life. While Darwin’s deterioration in health may have reduced h…
Language out of Music
A growing consensus drawing on research in a wide variety of disciplines has, over the last fifteen years or so, argued the need to revisit Darwin's conjecture of 1871 that language may be descended from an existing, musical medium of communication that developed from animal calls. This paper seeks to examine, in an extension of Hockett's analysis of the design features required for linguistic communication, the nature of the acoustic information…
Language out of Music
A growing consensus drawing on research in a wide variety of disciplines has, over the last fifteen years or so, argued the need to revisit Darwin's conjecture of 1871 that language may be descended from an existing, musical medium of communication that developed from animal calls. This paper seeks to examine, in an extension of Hockett's analysis of the design features required for linguistic communication, the nature of the acoustic information…
The Evolution of Gender Dimorphism in the Human Voice
Humans exhibit what appears to be a unique vocal property: octave equivalence, whereby adult male voices are, on average, an octave lower in pitch than those of adult females and children. The evolutionary significance of this seems largely to have escaped notice. While sexual selection might explain why male voices are generally lower, it cannot explain why they should be so much lower than what would be expected for body size or why the average…
Language out of Music
A growing consensus drawing on research in a wide variety of disciplines has, over the last fifteen years or so, argued the need to revisit Darwin's conjecture of 1871 that language may be descended from an existing, musical medium of communication that developed from animal calls. This paper seeks to examine, in an extension of Hockett's analysis of the design features required for linguistic communication, the nature of the acoustic information…
Darwin, music and evolution
The impression has formed in the literature dealing with Darwin’s life and achievement that he was himself unmusical, and that his theories have offered little help in understanding or valuing the role of music in human society. This article draws on biographical information relating to Darwin’s family and household to illustrate that he was in fact surrounded by music throughout his life. While Darwin’s deterioration in health may have reduced h…
Music and Song, Evolutionary Approaches to
New research methods have during the last thirty years focused increased attention on the role of music in culture and its place in the field of anthropology. One model of the evolution of human communication proposes that song may have been the precursor of language. Musical communication may have been the means by which the vocal instrument attained the capacity for the fine‐tuned acoustic productivity necessary for the development of language.…
Darwin’s Education
Darwin’s Beliefs
Evolutionary Perspectives on Music
Music
Music
Ancient Voices, Contemporary Practice, and Human Musicality
Debate continues regarding the purpose and practice of music in relation to participation, cultural origin, and education internationally. A Darwinian approach that sees musical vocalization as the adaptive bridge between animal communication and human language remains hotly disputed where such a model does not suit the prevailing political or social agenda. The two books under review present contrasting viewpoints and evidence, while their concu…
Two Servants, One Master
This article explores and examines research in the field of human vocalization, proposing an evolutionary sequence for human acoustic perception and productive response. This involves updating and extending Charles Darwin’s 1871 proposal that musical communication predated language, while providing the anatomical and behavioral foundations for the articulacy on which it depends. In presenting evidence on which a new consensus regarding the emerg…
Music
The first half of 2022 has seen further multidisciplinary contributions to the field of music evolution with a particular focus on the related phenomena of pitch perception, harmonicity and the construction of melody. The six publications under review represent stimulating new perspectives both on the general adaptive features of the human capacity for music, and on specific parameters that will inform in turn the work of others working in this f…
The Evolution of Music, 2023
Acoustic Processing and the Origin of Human Vocal Communication
Humans have inherited from their remotest mammalian ancestors an integration of the sensory and motor systems that permits the exchange of signals and information, led by an instinctive response to harmonicity. The transition, from capacity for animal communication involving calls, facial expression and gestures, to modern human culture that embraces language, music, and dance, has resulted from anatomical adaptations such as upright posture, a d…
The Evolution of Gender Dimorphism in the Human Voice
Humans exhibit what appears to be a unique vocal property: octave equivalence, whereby adult male voices are, on average, an octave lower in pitch than those of adult females and children. The evolutionary significance of this seems largely to have escaped notice. While sexual selection might explain why male voices are generally lower, it cannot explain why they should be so much lower than what would be expected for body size or why the average…
Innovative pedagogy for creative musicianship
This article sets out the historical and conceptual development of a new musical pedagogy named Harmony Signing, and the influences that prompted its invention. It represents the first attempt to explain Harmony Signing as a distinct semiotic system. Two factors contributed to the inception of this project: the intention to help primary age children to compose chorally for each other where they had limited existing experience of music notation; a…
Psychology (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Diverse Musicological Studies (6 works) · History (6 works) · Music Technology and Sound Studies (6 works) · Musical (6 works) · Neuroscience and Music Perception (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Communication (5 works) · Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior (4 works)