Singing researchers reveal global relationships between speech and music ― Across languages, songs and instrumental melodies are slower, higher, and use more stable pitches than speech ―

May 16, 2024

Keio University

A team of 75 researchers from around the globe led by Dr. Yuto Ozaki and Associate Professor Patrick Savage from Keio University in Japan have identified consistent similarities and differences in speech, song, and instrumental music throughout the world. Acoustic analysis of hundreds of recordings of singing, recited lyrics, instrumental melodies, and spoken descriptions from over 50 diverse languages by the researchers themselves in their native/heritage languages revealed that songs and instrumental melodies are consistently slower and use higher and more stable pitches than speech. The researchers speculate that these differences may have evolved to help bond people together through group music making. The 75 coauthors include 8 Keio University coauthors from Associate Professor Savage's CompMusic Lab and Associate Professor Shinya Fujii's NeuroMusic Lab. The results were published in the open-access journalScience Advanceson May 15th, 2024.

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Singing researchers reveal global relationships between speech and music — Across languages, songs and instrumental melodies are slower, higher, and use more stable pitches than speech—.pdf