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Universality and diversity in human song
Samuel A Mehr1,2,3, Manvir Singh4, Dean Knox5
1Data Science Initiative, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. sam@wjh.harvard.edu manvirsingh@fas.harvard.edu glowacki@psu.edu.
Science (New York, N.Y.)
|November 23, 2019
Summary
Music is a universal human behavior, present in all societies. While its expression varies within cultures, core elements like tonality and associations with contexts like healing and dance show global patterns.
Area of Science:
- Ethnomusicology
- Cognitive Science
- Anthropology
Background:
- Music is a pervasive aspect of human culture, yet its universal features and cultural variations remain incompletely understood.
- Previous research has often focused on specific musical traditions, limiting a global perspective.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the universal and variable aspects of music across diverse global societies.
- To identify commonalities and differences in musical behavior and structure worldwide.
Main Methods:
- Compilation of an ethnographic corpus detailing musical behavior in a representative sample of world societies.
- Analysis of a discography of audio recordings using machine summaries, listener ratings, and manual transcriptions.
- Statistical analysis of ethnographic data and acoustic features to identify patterns.
Main Results:
- Music, including song, is present in every observed society.
- Musical variation occurs primarily along dimensions of formality, arousal, and religiosity, with greater differences within societies than across them.
- Acoustic features predict musical context (e.g., infant care, healing, dance, love), tonality appears widespread, and rhythmic/melodic complexity varies, often following power laws.
Conclusions:
- Music is a universal human phenomenon with both shared characteristics and culturally specific expressions.
- The study provides a quantitative framework for understanding global musical diversity and commonalities.
- Findings suggest underlying cognitive or biological factors may influence universal musical structures and functions.
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