Cross-cultural convergence of musical features

Singing, rhythmic movement to music, and musical instruments, blown or struck, are pervasive, with a deep history (1). Ethnomusicologists do not dispute the existence of core abilities that support a variety of musical activities across cultures, but they are generally averse to notions of universals involving musical structure or form (2). In their view, the music of every culture is unique, being governed by systematic but arbitrary conventions. Although scientists who study music focus primarily on cognitive and neural processes (3), they regard universal musical features as an empirical question, as do Savage et al. (4) in PNAS. To date, however, scientists have relied almost exclusively on convenience samples of Western listeners and Western instrumental music, limiting the potential generality of their findings. Savage et al. apply rigorous classification criteria and phylogenetic comparative methods to a large global set of musical recordings, documenting an impressive list of musical features that are near-universal (i.e., statistical universals). The authors also identify a number of feature dependencies and music-making contexts that have high prevalence rates. The findings of Savage et al. raise provocative questions about musical structure, functions, and origins.