From love songs to dance tunes to lullabies, music made in disparate cultures worldwide displays certain universal patterns, according to a study by researchers who suggest a commonality in the way human minds create music.
The study, published on Thursday, focused on musical recordings and ethnographic records from 60 societies around the world, including such diverse cultures as the highland Scots, Nyangatom nomads in Ethiopia, Mentawai rain-forest dwellers in Indonesia, the Saramaka descendants of African slaves in Suriname and Aranda hunter-gatherers in Australia.
Music was broadly found to be associated with behaviors including infant care, dance, love, healing, weddings, funerals, warfare, processions and religious rituals.