5. The Hominid Score

Available for over a year

Ben Garrod, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of East Anglia is on a mission to uncover a world of unexpected rhythm and melody across nature and in doing so, question our assumptions about the boundaries of musical expression and its role. In this final essay, he draws upon his experiences as a primatologist, having lived and worked alongside monkeys and apes – to understand at which point and why, music features so heavily in our own story. From the practical roles of highly choreographed melodic duets of gibbons to the way creative drumming and calls produced by chimpanzees play in generating emotional states, that shed light on how music has become so influential for us as humans. With contributions from Dr Dena Clink, bioacoustics researcher at Cornell University; Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes, archaeologist, author and honorary research fellow at Universities of Liverpool and Cambridge Presented by Professor Ben Garrod Produced by Adrian Washbourne Mixed by Julian Mayers Executive Producer: Rami Tzabar A YadaYada Production for BBC Radio 3