Vijay Iyer

Senior Vice President, Associate General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, Booking Holdings

Search every verified Vijay Iyer interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a 2016 appearance on the series #MathScienceMusic, Vijay Iyer discussed the biological and social foundations of music. Iyer, a pianist, composer, and professor of music at Harvard University, argued that music is "the sound of bodies in motion" and that it is fundamentally a social and cultural experience. He contrasted this view with that of Steven Pinker, whom he quoted as describing music as "auditory cheesecake" with no particular evolutionary benefit. Iyer stated that he "violently disagrees" with Pinker's view, asserting that music is not merely an imitation but "the sound of human action itself." Iyer also referenced the work of evolutionary biologist Mark Changizi, who he said argues that music harnesses an existing perceptual apparatus evolved for perceiving human motion. Iyer noted that until recently, music was always made through bodily engagement with technology, from pure bodily acts like stomping and clapping to instruments adapted from the natural world, such as gourds and animal skins, which later evolved into refined instruments like the piano and saxophone.