2022/02/04
Keio University
An international research team, led by Associate Professor Patrick Savage of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies at Keio University, and with co-researchers including Project Assistant Professor Samuel Passmore from the university's Graduate School of Media and Governance, Gakuto Chiba, a master's student in the same graduate school, and Associate Professor Haruo Suzuki from the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, published a research paper in the academic journal "Current Biology" on February 3, 2022.
This team analyzed the melodies of 10,062 folk songs (4,125 English-American and 5,937 Japanese), demonstrating that folk song melodies evolve through descent with modification. Using alignment algorithms developed for molecular genetics, they discovered that these melodies undergo predictable changes depending on their cultural context. For example, notes that serve a rhythmic function within a song are less prone to change than ornamental notes, performers are more inclined to add or delete notes than to substitute them, and when substitutions do occur, they are more likely to be with adjacent notes.
These results reveal that creative art forms like music are subject to regular evolutionary constraints across cultures, similar to the constraints that govern the evolution of genes, languages, and other cultural domains.
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