Music Across the World

Question 1

List the 5 influences that may shape the development of musical styles

Answer 1

1) Vocal Constraints
2) Memory Constraints
3) Bounded tessituras
4) Speech Patterns
5) instrument acoustics

Question 2

What 4 types of vocal constraints shape the development of musical styles

Answer 2

Late-phrase compression
Small pitch intervals
Declination
Low-skip bias

Question 3

What types of memory constraints shape development of musical styles

Answer 3

Repetition
Contour perception
Non-equidistant scales are more memorable
Categorical memory representations

Question 4

What types of bounded tessitura affected the development of musical styles

Answer 4

Direction of melody reverses after a leap

Registrar direction principle

Question 5

What types of speech patterns shape development of musical styles

Answer 5

How a culture speaks is manifested in their music

E.g. Kentucky fiddle music

Question 6

What types of instrument acoustics shape development of musical styles

Answer 6

Musical systems developing around the instrument in that culture - exploiting natural consonances - e.g., Javanese Gamelan

Question 7

Savage et. al (2015)

Answer 7

304 recordings coded from pre-existing worldwide data set
Coded into 32 statistical universals (definition=occurs 50% of time) which can be grouped into 6 categories: pitch, rhythm, form, instrumentation, performance style and social context
- however, there are 18 which truly passed the criteria for universals

Question 8

What are the 5 pitch statistical universals identified by Savage et. al (2015)?

Answer 8

Pitch:

1. discrete pitches
2. grouped into nonequidistant scales
3. scales containing seven or fewer scale degrees per octave
4. music tends to use descending or arched melodic contours
5. melodies composed of small intervals (perf 5th or smaller)

Question 9

What are the 6 rhythm statistical universals identified by Savage et. al (2015)?

Answer 9

Rhythm

6. use an isochronous beat
7. organized according to metrical hierarchies
8. based on multiples of two or three beats
9. —especially multiples of two beats
10. construct motivic patterns
11. based on fewer than five durational values

Question 10

What are the form statistical universals identified by Savage et. al (2015)?

Answer 10

Form

12. consist of short phrases (less that 9s long)

Question 11

What are the instrumentation statistical universals identified by Savage et. al (2015)?

Answer 11

Instrumentation

13. Use of voice
14. And non-vocal instruments

Question 12

What are the performance style statistical universals identified by Savage et. al (2015)?

Answer 12

Performance style

15. tends to use chest voice (modal register)
16. to sing words

Question 13

What are the social context statistical universals identified by Savage et. al (2015)?

Answer 13

Social context

17. performed predominantly in groups
18. often by males

Question 14

Mehr et. al (2019)

Answer 14

Cross-cultural study with a focus on song
Utilised Bayesian Principal Component Analysis
Returned that the 3 main behavioural context for songs =
1. Formality
2. Arousal
3. Religiosity
Key finding = there is more variation within a given culture than cross-culturally

Question 15

What are the 7 main contexts identified by Mehr et. al (2019)?

Answer 15

Dance
Healing
Religious activity, rituals
Mourning, death, funerals
Processions, spectacles, nuptials
Play, games, childhood activities
Love

Question 16

What are Mehr et. al’s (2019) proposed universals

Answer 16

1. Tonality (esp. idea of having a tonal centre)
2. Melodies vary in melodic/rhythmic complexity (in that varying levels of complexity determine song type, e.g. dance = high rhythmic complexity)
3. Melodic and rhythmic bigrams distributed in accordance w power laws (intervals = unison, maj 2nd, min 3rd; rhythmic ratios = 1:1, 2:1, 3:1)

Question 17

Problems with Mehr et. al’s (2019) proposed universals?

Answer 17

1. Conception of tonality = Western centric, analysed and interpreted by Western theorists
2. Weak support from data - 2 levels of complexity only explain a small part of variance
3. Quantified into Western notation (bias in this adjustment)

Question 18

Schäfer et. al (2013)

Answer 18

The ‘Big Three’ of music listening identified using principal component analysis
1. Arousal and mood regulation (physiological/arousal-related function; emotional function) - music for pleasure
2. Self awareness (cognitive function; emotional function) - satisfying the basic human concerns of anxiety avoidance and quest for meaning
3. Social relatedness (social/cultural function) - music for social
1st and 2nd judged as more important than 3rd

Question 19

​​Nikolsky et. al (2020)

Answer 19

• timbre-based music - ‘personal song’, found esp. in Siberia (linked to Denisovian people)
• not all cultures use frequency-based intervals
• speculation that frequency-based music developed due to the need for social bonding and larger social gatherings - population growth required cohesion, language formation - group activities

Question 20

Brown and Jordania (2013)

Answer 20

Argue for a consideration of the existence of musical universals, proposing these categories of musical universals:

1. Pitch
2. Rhythm
3. Melodic structure and texture
4. Form
5. Vocal style
6. Expressive devices
7. Instruments
8. Contents
9. Contexts
10. Behaviours