Out of Africa: the evolution of the human capacity for music

Research in a variety of disciplines during the last twenty years has thrown new light on the question which all music educators must consider: what is the nature of the human capacity for music? This paper will confine itself to reflecting on new discoveries and theories in molecular biology, archaeology, palaeozoology, comparative linguistics and psychobiology which converge to suggest a hypothesis which promises to become highly influential on both the intrinsic practice of music education, and the extrinsic justification for its promotion and funding. And geographically, in time, the place to which all these current findings point, where the well-springs of musical experience arose in the human species, is Africa.