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Back in December, The Economist ran a fascinating article on why the origins of music asking the simple question, "Why does music exist?"

Such a multiplicity of effects suggests music may be an emergent property of the brain, cobbled together from bits of pre-existing machinery and then, as it were, fine-tuned. So, ironically, everyone may be righ --, at least partly right. Dr Pinker may be right that music was originally an accident and Dr Patel may be right that it transforms people's perceptions of the world without necessarily being a proper biological phenomenon. But Dr Miller and Dr Dunbar may be right that even if it originally was an accident, it has subsequently been exploited by evolution and made functional.

The truth, of course, is that nobody yet knows why people respond to music. But, when the carol singers come calling, whether the emotion they induce is joy or pain, you may rest assured that science is trying to work out why.

Read on, inquisitive reader...it's a fascinating article, indeed.

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