Vision

Everyone loves music. Humans have been making music since prehistory. The oldest known instruments are 60,000-year-old bone flutes made by our Neanderthal cousins. Still, the voice is older, with some evolutionary biologists theorizing that language and music came from a protolanguage. Utterances grew increasingly complex in meaning and structure. Sustained calls echoing across plains and jungles, the soft coos comforting babies, the sick, and the dying — these became the singing we recognize in ceremonies and entertainment.

While the origins of music remain a mystery, we can be sure of a few facts. First, we know it was essential to our ancestors. While saber-toothed tigers and starvation were everyday struggles, humans and neanderthals found time to craft and play instruments. They even buried their dead with them. Second, we know that the practice is universal. Ancient cave paintings depict musical instruments like flutes and drums across time and geographic space. Every known community today engages with music. Evolution would have weeded out the practice long ago if music had not been necessary.

So what can music do for us as people concerned with the environment? Can it save the world? If we blast John Lennon’s “Imagine” simultaneously worldwide, would all war end and environmental degradation cease? What is the real power of music? And how can we harness it?