Chimpanzee drumming: a spontaneous performance with characteristics of human musical drumming.

Valérie Dufour,Charlotte Curé Charlotte Curé,Nicolas Poulin,Elisabeth H M Sterck

doi:10.1038/srep11320

Abstract

Despite the quintessential role that music plays in human societies by enabling us to release and share emotions with others, traces of its evolutionary origins in other species remain scarce. Drumming like humans whilst producing music is practically unheard of in our most closely related species, the great apes. Although beating on tree roots and body parts does occur in these species, it has, musically speaking, little in common with human drumming. Researchers suggest that for manual beating in great apes to be compared to human drumming, it should at least be structurally even, a necessary quality to elicit entrainment (beat induction in others). Here we report an episode of spontaneous drumming by a captive chimpanzee that approaches the structural and contextual characteristics usually found in musical drumming. This drumming differs from most beating episodes reported in this species by its unusual duration, the lack of any obvious context, and rhythmical properties that include long-lasting and dynamically changing rhythms, but also evenness and leisureliness. This performance is probably the first evidence that our capacity to drum is shared with our closest relatives.

Highlights

Buttresses, cans, body parts or objects, as wild chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas do[10,11,12,13,14,15], may be the sign of a link between body movement and vocal production[1] and is sometimes called “drumming”[4,10]
We report an unusual performance of a chimpanzee named Barney
Barney was observed beating repeatedly and spontaneously on an upturned bucket for several sequences within a period of few minutes (Supplementary Audio file and Fig. 1). We evaluated his performance to establish which features fit with the type of characteristics generally associated with human drumming[2], i.e. intentionality, decontextualisation and formality, and explored if and how this particular event differed from previously reported manual beating displays by apes

Summary

Introduction

Buttresses, cans, body parts or objects, as wild chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas do[10,11,12,13,14,15], may be the sign of a link between body movement and vocal production[1] and is sometimes called “drumming”[4,10] In essence, it is more a spectacular noise-making display than a structurally isochronous performance[9]. Barney was observed beating repeatedly and spontaneously on an upturned bucket for several sequences within a period of few minutes (Supplementary Audio file and Fig. 1) We evaluated his performance to establish which features fit with the type of characteristics generally associated with human drumming[2], i.e. intentionality, decontextualisation and formality, and explored if and how this particular event differed from previously reported manual beating displays by apes

Methods

Results

Conclusion