Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=bt-ytdesc-text-fi-spitzer-aTL4qSLXlGE Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, The mind-bending probability of our existence | Sean B. Carroll: Full Interview ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hOjpxNHgQc Music is at least a million years older than language, yet we still see it solely through the lens of entertainment. Professor Michael Spitzer argues it's something closer to a biological system, one that was shaping the human body long before we had words for what we were feeling. Why does a chord you've never heard before make you want to cry? Why do babies respond to rhythm before they've heard a single song? Why does the same part of your brain that processes mortal danger also process musical beauty? The answers reach back 4 million years, and forward into a future where music may be prescribed like medicine. Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/music-human-body/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ►Listen to Big Think Interviews on Spotify Insights from the world's biggest thinkers, now as a podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/7KRYoRD1NdF2aoQcBMyPlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Michael Spitzer: Michael Spitzer is the author of The Musical Human and professor of music at the University of Liverpool, where he leads the department’s work on classical music. A music theorist and musicologist, he is an authority on Beethoven, with interests in aesthetics and critical theory, cognitive metaphor, and music and affect. He organized the International Conferences on Music and Emotion and the International Conference on Analyzing Popular Music and currently chairs the editorial board of Music Analysis Journal.