> How in the world did music come into existence and become ingrained in virtually all of humanity?

Well, sound existed before humanity did. I imagine that even the earliest organisms with auditory capabilities heard /something/ even if it was just the fizz of gases or of water splashing or something. Human beings have a habit of taking things we see in nature and ordering them until they do something for us that pleases us. Hence, it makes sense that we would take the natural music of the world, the sounds we heard throughout our evolution, and tame it into different forms which we call "Music" as a whole. And people tend to like music because we /made/ it for us to like. We took sounds we liked and copied them. The sounds we like change over time, just like we do, and then we change the music. For humans, it makes sense that we will create something that will ultimately appeal to all of the senses we know. We have art for seeing, cooking for taste, floral arrangements and other odd things for smell, every sort of fabric and texture for touch etc. etc. etc. So, that is my explanation of music. And I haven't even started majoring in science yet...

Melanie