Evolution of music by public choice

Music evolves as composers, performers, and consumers favor some musical variants over others. To investigate the role of consumer selection, we constructed a Darwinian music engine consisting of a population of short audio loops that sexually reproduce and mutate. This population evolved for 2,513...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 109; no. 30; pp. 12081 - 12086
Main Authors MacCallum, Robert M., Mauch, Matthias, Burt, Austin, Leroi, Armand M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 24.07.2012
National Acad Sciences
SeriesFrom the Cover
Subjects
Acoustic Stimulation
Aesthetics
Algorithms
Biological Sciences
Computer Simulation
Consumer Behavior - statistics & numerical data
Consumers
Covariance
Cultural Evolution
Ecological competition
Esthetics
Evolution
Humans
Models, Theoretical
Music
Music composition
Music instrumentation
Musical aesthetics
Musical chords
Musical rhythm
Musicians & conductors
Population control
Population mean
Preferences
Social Sciences
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Summary:Music evolves as composers, performers, and consumers favor some musical variants over others. To investigate the role of consumer selection, we constructed a Darwinian music engine consisting of a population of short audio loops that sexually reproduce and mutate. This population evolved for 2,513 generations under the selective influence of 6,931 consumers who rated the loops' aesthetic qualities. We found that the loops quickly evolved into music attributable, in part, to the evolution of aesthetically pleasing chords and rhythms. Later, however, evolution slowed. Applying the Price equation, a general description of evolutionary processes, we found that this stasis was mostly attributable to a decrease in the fidelity of transmission. Our experiment shows how cultural dynamics can be explained in terms of competing evolutionary forces.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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Edited* by Richard E. Lenski, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, and approved May 10, 2012 (received for review February 27, 2012)
2Present address: Centre for Digital Music, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom.
Author contributions: R.M.M. and A.M.L. designed research; R.M.M. and M.M. performed research; R.M.M. and M.M. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; R.M.M., M.M., A.B., and A.M.L. analyzed data; and A.M.L. wrote the paper.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1203182109