I think you should just listen to whatever music makes you happy without worrying about how "paleo" it is. Music that makes you happy is good for you, period, no matter what the instruments or beats per minute.

That being said, I sometimes listen to recordings of ocean noises or rain when falling asleep, and it really helps relax me. I'd recommend it to anyone who lives in a city and would otherwise be falling asleep to traffic noise.

Have you ever seen any of those tribes who beat drums and dance feverishly as a shaman channels the spirit world? That.

(That's essentially what my pre-workout routine looks like--I am the witch doctor.)

It's not paleo unless it features a didgeridoo.

Okay, I am a teacher and I have attended a workshop on it. The best music for students' brains is Largo and Adagio. They even make special CDs now for teachers.

Here is the link: http://www.newmanagement.com/music/index.html It totally relaxes you.

Here is my favorite music. It is not Paleo, but it totally relaxes me:

Om Mani Padme Hum

Also, I have read a research paper that suggested that the cows give the most milk while listening to Johann Strauss' waltzes.

Here is my favorite Paleo music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKLxFmnYO_I&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTCJ5hedcVA&feature=related (do not milk any cows while listening to this, but still better than Justin Bieber)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vi-Gy5Je8M&feature=related

Pastoral:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipsdHA3gLnM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH9zNz9L_VA&feature=related (bring your own cow)

Enjoy!

It "releases neurons in the brain which helps the body to relax"?

What biochemical process is involved in releasing a neuron and how does that help the body to relax?

Anthropologists have recently discovered a flute that is 40,000 years old. Isn't that a kick!

Paleo is not the ultimate question or standard for everything. I try to eat and move paleo because I am living in this physical body which was "designed" by millions of years of evolution. But my spirit is different and much older. I would recommend any music that uplifts the spirit to the maximum, like Bach, Vivaldi, new age music, Beethoven, etc.

I'd consider Gabrielle Roth's 5 Rhythms as Paleo:

http://www.gabrielleroth.com/

...Considering way back in the day they beat on things to produce rhythm, maybe added melodies from flute type instruments, perhaps a gut strung instrument but nothing too technical. The women would sing, sometimes in repetitive circular phrasing, and the men would yell, announce superiority, claim women, or declare love for finer things like the best meat, or other amenities.

The closest genre we have to that speculation on our history is rap, but all genres basically carry those traits but are presented in more or less obnoxious ways and with a varying degree of truth.

I might wager that one can choose any genre and measure how paleo it is on a separate scale from its place on the genre chart. All music can be divided by type, but there is another scale, is it a new and original sound or is it a sound that clearly imitated another band? That scale is heavily weighed towards the latter but if I were to make a connection between paleo and music I would use it with the small end being what is more paleo.

The origins of man, the origins of a type of music.

I like what I like when I like it....do we have to "paleo-ize" everything? (sorry, haven't had my coffee yet) I agree with Violet9. Whatever music makes you feel good is what you should listen to. Drums and beats and pipes may be the technically oldest sound as music but it would make me nuts to listen to...

Boss drum. "A techno tribal positively primal anarchistic archaic shamanic revival"

I'm just like music, myself. Lately it's been Joe Purdy, Beans on Toast, Arlo Guthrie, Frank Turner - intersperse that with some early-style ska-reggae (Desmond Dekker,Laurel Aitken, Aggrolites) and some late 80's-early 90's punk - then you have my playlist 99% of the time. Oh, and Portishead, which doesn't fit any of the above molds.

I've never gotten into the majority of heavily electronic music unless it's got a strong organic component (like Everything But The Girl, electronic music with soulful haunting singing/lyrics).

Acapella along with percussion was probably the earliest form of music.

Singing, humming, making tones with your voice--whatever you want to call it--it comes as naturally to people as talking (in fact, you could probably make an argument that humans sang--or at least produced melodies--before language).

Most instruments (other than percussion, which being a-tonal is a special case) are played in a style that mimics the human voice (modern electronic instruments perhaps break that mold, but I think it has been true for most of history).

The eminent biologist E.O. Wilson has this to say about the evolutionary role of music in his most recent book:

"Was music Darwinian? Did it have survival value for the Paleolithic tribes that practiced it? Examining the customs of contemporary hunter-gatherer cultures from around the world, one can hardly come to any other conclusion. Songs, usually accompanied by dances, are all but universal. And because Australian aboriginals have been isolated since the arrival of their forebears about 45,000 years ago, and their songs and dances are similar in genre to those of other hunter-gatherer cultures, it is reasonable to suppose that they resemble the ones practiced by their Paleolithic ancestors.

"Anthropologists have paid relatively little attention to contemporary hunter-gatherer music, relegating its study to specialists on music, as they are also prone to do for linguistics and ethnobotany (the study of plants used by the tribes). Nonetheless, songs and dances are major elements of all hunter-gatherer societies. Furthermore, they are typically communal, and they address an impressive array of life issues. The songs of the well-studied Inuit, Gabon pygmies, and Arnhem Land aboriginals approach a level of detail and sophistication comparable to those of advanced modern civilizations. The musical compositions of modern hunter-gatherers generally serve basically as tools that invigorate their lives. The subjects within the repertoires include histories and mythologies of the tribe as well as practical knowledge about land, plants, and animals. Of special importance to the meaning of game animals in the Paleolithic cave art of Europe, the songs and dances of the modern tribes are mostly about hunting. They speak of the various prey; they empower the hunting weapons, including the dogs; they appease the animals they have killed or are about to kill; and they offer homage to the land on which they hunt. They recall and celebrate successful hunts of the past. They honor the dead and ask the favor of the spirits who rule their fates.

"It is self-evident that the songs and dances of contemporary hunter-gatherer peoples serve them at both the individual and the group levels. They draw the tribal members together, creating a common knowledge and purpose. They excite passion for action. They are mnemonic, stirring and adding to the memory of information that serves the tribal purpose. Not least, knowledge of the songs and dances gives power to those within the tribe who know them best.

"To create and perform music is a human instinct. It is one of the true universals of our species. To take an extreme example, the neuroscientist Aniruddh D. Patel points to the Pirahã, a small tribe in the Brazilian Amazon: “Members of this culture speak a language without numbers or a concept of counting. Their language has no fixed terms for colors. They have no creation myths, and they do not draw, aside from simple stick figures. Yet they have music in abundance, in the form of songs.” Patel has referred to music as a “transformative technology.” To the same degree as literacy and language itself, it has changed the way people see the world."

Country music! As soon as I went no-grain/mostly paleo, I suddenly only want to listen to country music when I used to almost hate it. Strange.