The Origins of Melody

Good music is not universal. What people like is factored by a lot of different things. So where does this music come from? Why are our ears so tuned in to melodies and why are we attracted to it?

It needs to call back to an evolutionary standard. There should be a reason that our brains are wired to enjoy music that is rooted in our evolutionary success.

As primitive animals (before we developed language), all we had were our noises to communicate. The tone and cadence of our voices were the tools we used to woo a female or signify danger, among many other things. These voices we used would be the closest resemblance of what today would be considered music. Which might be why we are so tuned into melody. We need to be able to recognize that sound and understand the wordless message.

I'm not talking rhythm; I'm talking melody. The fact that we are attuned to rhythm as a human race is pretty clear when we look at our universe and how we work in harmony with the earth. We are creatures of habit (or rhythm)

For wooing, some species of birds call to each other with the best song they can muster. They also will rip each others' songs off and sing them to show that they can do a better job than the one who originally sang it. Were our ancestors this same way? What do you think?