Why Rock Stars Get the Girl
• Amorous Research
Did music come into being just so our guy ancestors could impress our girl ancestors? Are songs ways of attracting groupies? Does this mean that women would have never created music on their own?
Miller proposes that back through the mists of evolutionary time, those of our male ancestors who were a bit more witty, could daub a bison on the cave wall or perhaps hum a nice tune got more mates, and over time creative abilities evolved as the men who were most artistic or musical had more children. At the same time, the preference for these abilities evolved and over the millennia our brains expanded to accommodate our growing creativity. Meanwhile, he says, women too were evolving creative abilities, because the ones that could entertain their men could keep them around to help raise the kids.
The initial preference for creativity could have come from the fact that only a high-quality man could have the time to spend on creating great music or nice pictures – the rest would be too busy just surviving to think about knocking out a hit single.
Sexy science: Why music really is the way to a woman’s heart