Chimpanzees' “Sense of Rhythm”: A Key to Understanding the Origins of Music?

"They may not write Gershwin hits, but chimpanzees do have a sense of rhythm," sums up the Guardian .

In a surprising study published Friday, May 9, in the American scientific journal Current Biology , researchers reveal that these primates drum with a strong rhythmic intention and that the frequency of their beats is by no means random.

“It was already known that chimpanzees drum on tree roots to communicate, with each individual developing its own unique tapping style. But until now, it was unknown whether these beats were truly rhythmic,” the Guardian recalls.

“Until recently, rhythmic ability was thought to be unique to humans,” ethologist Gisela Kaplan, emeritus professor of animal behavior at the University of New England in Australia, told New Scientist magazine . “We now have plenty of evidence to the contrary.”

The idea that these monkeys' tree-tapping sounds could help us understand the origins of musicality in humans has long fascinated researchers. But until now, it has proven difficult to collect sufficient usable data from the cacophony of the jungle.

“The study, recently published in the journal Current Biology, is the culmination of decades of careful observation and rigorous analysis. It is based on 371 drumming sequences recorded in wild chimpanzees from 11 communities in West and East Africa,” says Science Focus , the science magazine of the BBC .

After successfully eliminating unwanted sounds, the international team of scientists led by researcher Vesta Eleuteri measured the duration of each sequence, the intervals between strikes, and the variability of the rhythms produced.

With this study, “it’s not a matter of saying that chimpanzee drumming reaches the complexity of current human musical rhythms,” notes British primatologist Catherine Hobaiter, one of the authors of this work. But it is the first time that we can show that they use the same basic rhythmic building blocks, which suggests that rhythm was probably already part of our social world long before we became human.”

“Our sense of rhythm therefore dates back more than seven million years, to the time when the last common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees lived,” concludes The Times .