Groupies and Peacocks

I recently finished Daniel Levitin's book This Is Your Brain On Music. Levitin, a former rocker turned neuroscientist, explains the hows and whys of music and the brain. He covers a lot of information that most musicians already know, such as music theory, but it is the explanations of brain activity in relation to music making and music listening that is the most fascinating.

Along with various neurological and physiological reasons for how we perceive music, our emotional response, and what happens in the brain when we play or listen, Levitin explains groupies. For the uninitiated, a groupie is usually female (although there have been instances of male groupies) and will have a predilection for a particular instrument. In other words, groupies that like guitar players generally will not pursue a drummer, and vice versa.

Groupies are not a result of the rise of rock bands, even though it seems that way. Music actually plays a role in sexual selection according to Leviton, who quotes Darwin saying, "I conclude that musical notes and rhythms were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex." Leviton adds that music indicates biological and sexual fitness, serving to attract mates. Music is like the peacock's feathers.

So, I guess there was nothing we could have done when those girls followed our band around the prairies, sometimes popping in unannounced several hundred miles from their home only to say "I was in the neighbourhood." Right. In the neighbourhood. Drayton Valley, Alberta is in the neighbourhood of Regina, Saskatchewan. And these poor girls could not help themselves either. When it's the biggest feathers you want, no distance is too far.