More than 75 researchers from 55 countries across the globe are registered as authors on the study titled Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report.
Published in the journal Science Advances, the prosaically titled paper uses an innovative model where the participants were also the co-authors.
As they begin, “Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music on a global scale.”
It’s a situation the study aims to correct.
The Study
The researchers analyzed data gathered from two sources. One consisted of a set of 300 annotated auto recordings that match traditional songs with their spoken lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from all 75 co-authors from 46 countries in 55 different languages.
In the recordings, each subject/co-author sang a traditional song, then recited the lyrics, performed an instrumental version, and described the song in spoken words without using the lyrics themselves. Those four recordings were compared to each other, and across all the participants.
The other source came from previously published material that consisted of song and speech recordings from 209 different people in 16 different languages.
The Main Findings
“There are many ways to look at the acoustic features of singing versus speaking, but we found the same three significant features across all the cultures we examined that distinguish song from speech,” said Peter Pfordresher, PhD, a professor of psychology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, and one of the 75 contributors, in a media statement.
The study’s coauthors had predicted six different findings in the analysis of the data. Five of those predictions were supported by their analysis of the data. They had postulated that, when comparing song to speech, songs would display:
- A higher pitch;
- A slower rate;
- Pitches that are more stable;
- Similar pitch interval sizes;
- Similar brightness of timbre.
They called the relationship between song and speech a “musi-linguistic” continuum that also incorporates the features of instrumental melodies and the lyrics as they are recited (rather than sung).
Instrumental melodies tend to have an even greater effect — i.e. even higher and more stable pitches than song.
While the features noted are universal across cultures, it does not mean there are no individual exceptions. But, with such a broad range of data from multiple cultures and languages, the findings represent empirical evidence of the concept of cross-cultural elements in both music and speech.
The new paper adds to a growing body of research that has revealed common characteristics and patterns in language and music across most of the world’s cultures. We all, for example, tend to raise the pitch of our voices when we speak to babies.
What does it mean?
That, of course, remains an unanswered question. Does it reveal an essential facet of humanity, one that we all respond to in similar ways? Does it have an evolutionary purpose?
Dr. Benetos of the Queen Mary University of London was a contributor to the analysis of the data. “This study is a testament to the power of collaboration and the importance of diversity in scientific research,” said Dr Benetos. “By bringing together researchers from different parts of the world, we were able to gain a deeper understanding of these universal patterns in music and language,” he comments in a statement.
The paper speculates that the slower rhythms of song and music vs. speech encourage synchronization. It makes it easier for us all to sing together, in other words, and encourages social bonding.
More pieces are sure to be added to this puzzle in a field that is delving into some of the fundamental characteristics of what it means to be human.
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