Is Music Truly Universal?

Have you ever thought about the sheer power of music? It truly is universal.It connects us all. It is the most common language in the world. Can you think of a culture on this earth that does not embrace music? Can you think of a single country or city that is not connected to the rest of the world with music? Even in the poorest places in the world, music is a part of every day life. Although often different in genre or style, music follows very similar structure worldwide. It is often referred to as the most universal language. Now we have science to back these claims up! A study by the University of Exeter and Tokyo University of the Arts has found that songs from around the world tend to share features that promote bonding and coordination amongst social groups. In the 304 studied recordings of stylistically diverse music from across the world, dozens of statistical universals were found, including consistent features related to pitch and rhythm, as well as social context and interrelationships. Now, the bliss of Tomorrowland, the surrealism of Electric Forest, and the frolicking at Bonaroo all makes sense. “Our findings help explain why humans make music,” explains Dr Thomas Currie from the University of Exeter. “The results show that the most common features seen in music around the world relate to things that allow people to coordinate their actions, and suggest that the main function of music is to bring people together and bond social groups – it can be a kind of social glue.”Via youredm.com Have you ever noticed this phenomenon? If you've ever travelled and visited a music venue, bar, club or party, you'll probably remember being able to feel the rhythm of the drums and the uplifting feeling of melody regardless what the instrumentation or lyric language was. It is something that we can all connect to, regardless of location or background. The lead author of the study, Pat Savage (a rad name for a rad study), explains the covert schematics behind music, “we’ve shown that despite its great surface diversity, most of the music throughout the world is actually constructed from very similar basic building blocks and performs very similar functions, which mainly revolve around bringing people together.” “In the West we can sometimes think of music as being about individuals expressing themselves or displaying their talent, but globally music tends to be more of social phenomena.”Via youredm.com     Coachella 2015: Belgiums Stromae proves music is a universal language With a musical set completely in French in the Mojave tent, Stromae captivated the crowd from the start, proving that music is a universal language. Paul Van Haver, Stromaes real name, describes himself as a composer, singer and songwriter. He is one of the premier pop artists in Europe, but admitted during Coachella that he was nervous. Via dailybulletin.com Woman Signs Song To Deaf Friend At Festival, Proves Music Is A Universally Beautiful Language Shes done a lot of cool things during her live shows, but perhaps the [...]

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