Choral Singing in Human Culture and Evolution

Why do humans sing together? When and why did choral singing emerge, and what role did it play in human evolution? In this groundbreaking interdisciplinary study, Joseph Jordania argues that choral singing is not a late cultural invention but an ancient evolutionary adaptation that contributed to the survival of early humans. Placing the origins of choral singing within the broader contexts of music, language, speech, intelligence, and cognition, the book explores connections with the evolution of human communication, the distribution of stuttering and dyslexia, and the acquisition of phonological systems by children across cultures. Drawing on evidence from musicology, anthropology, psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, The Origins of Human Choral Singing presents a bold synthesis that challenges conventional theories and offers a new perspective on one of humanity's defining behaviors. Widely praised by leading scholars, the book has been described as "a masterpiece of comparative musicology" and a work that deserves attention across the human sciences.