Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report
Yuto Ozaki, Adam Tierney, Peter Q. Pfordresher, J. Michael McBride, Emmanouil Benetos, Polina Proutskova, Gakuto Chiba, Fang Liu, Nori Jacoby, Suzanne C. Purdy, Patricia Opondo, Tecumseh Fitch, Shantala Hegde, Martín Rocamora, Rob Thorne, Florence Ewomazino Nweke, Dhwani P. Sadaphal, Parimal M. Sadaphal, Shafagh Hadavi, Shinya Fujii, Sangbuem Choo, Marin Naruse, Utae Ehara, Latyr Sy, Mark Lenini Parselelo, Manuel Anglada-Tort, Niels Chr. Hansen, Felix Haiduk, Ulvhild Færøvik, Violeta Amélia Magalhães, Wojciech Krzyżanowski, Олена Щербакова, Diana Hereld, Brenda Suyanne Barbosa, Marco Antônio Corrêa Varella, Марк Ван Тонгерен, Polina Dessiatnitchenko, Su Zar Zar, Iyadh El Kahla, Olcay Muslu, Jakelin Troy, Teona Lomsadze, Dilyana Kurdova, CristianoTsope, Daniel Fredriksson, A. Arabadjiev, Jehoshaphat Philip Sarbah, Adwoa Arhine, Tadhg Ó Meachair, Javier Silva-Zurita, Ignacio Soto-Silva, Neddiel Elcie Muñoz Millalonco, Rytis Ambrazevičius, Psyche Loui, Andrea Ravignani, Yannick Jadoul, Pauline Larrouy-Maestri, Camila Bruder, Tutushamum Puri Teyxokawa, Urise Kuikuro, Rogerdison Natsitsabui, Nerea Bello Sagarzazu, Limor Raviv, Minyu Zeng, Shahaboddin Dabaghi Varnosfaderani, Juan Sebastián Gómez-Cañón, Kayla Kolff, Christina M. Vanden Bosch der Nederlanden, Meyha Chhatwal, Ryan Mark David, I. Putu Gede Setiawan, Great Lekakul, Vanessa Nina Borsan, Nozuko Nguqu, Patrick E. Savage
Abstract
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. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two global datasets: 1) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; and 2) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six pre-registered predictions, five were strongly supported: relative to speech, songs use 1) higher pitch, 2) slower temporal rate, and 3) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar 4) pitch interval size, and 5) timbral brightness. Exploratory analyses suggest that features vary along a “musi-linguistic” continuum when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Our study provides strong empirical evidence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech.