Comparative musicology evolution, universals, and the science of the world's music Patrick E. Savage

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Savage, Patrick E., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnomusicology.

ethnomusicology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford Oxford University Press [2026]

Summary:

Why do all human societies make music, but in such different ways? Scientific attempts to answer this question through cross-cultural comparison stalled during the 20th century and have only recently begun to make a resurgence. In this book, Patrick Savage, a leader in this resurgence synthesises recent advances from musicology and related fields including psychology, linguistics, computer science, and evolutionary anthropology to outline ways to understand and compare all the world's music. He applies comparative musicology to longstanding debates including universal and culturally-specific aspects of human music; evolutionary relationships between song, speech, and animal vocalisation; and applications to areas including music copyright, 2nd language acquisition, social bonding, and cultural heritage revitalisation

Contents:

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication page

Prologue

Contents

Detailed Contents

Foreword

Psyche Loui

Svanibor Pettan

Acknowledgements

1 Introduction: Aims, Chapter Structure, and Key Definitions

1.1 Aims of the Book

1.2 Structure of the Book

1.3 Definitions of Key Terms

1.3.1 Music

1.3.2 Musicality

1.3.3 Science

1.3.4 (Comparative/ethno/historical/cognitive) musicology

1.3.5 Evolution

1.3.6 Universal

1.3.7 Western (/Global North/WEIRD [Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic])

References

2 Tutorial: Acoustic comparison within and between societies (and species)

2.1 Sing!

2.2 Listen!

2.3 Initial Subjective Impressions (``Vibes'')

2.3.1 Sound-meaning relationships

2.3.2 Sound-context relationships

2.3.3 Perceived similarities

2.4 (More) Objective Features

2.4.1 Western staff notation

2.4.2 Macro-feature classification (Cantometrics)

Visualising and comparing repertoires between societies

2.4.3 Automatic acoustic analysis via music information retrieval (MIR)

2.5 Global Comparison

2.6 Conclusions

3 History: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Comparative Musicology

3.1 Origins of Music, Origins of Musicology (1880s)

3.2 The Berlin School and Early Comparative Musicologists (1880s-1920s)

3.3 Folk Revival and Tune Family Research (1920s-50s)

3.4 Cantometrics (1950s-)

3.5 Transition from ``Comparative Musicology'' to ``Ethnomusicology'' (1950s-)

3.6 Rise of Music Cognition and Music Information Retrieval (1970s-)

3.7 Comparative Musicology in the 21st Century (2000s-)

3.7.1 Analytical Approaches to World Music

3.7.2 Steven Brown's ``New Comparative Musicology'' and My CompMusic Lab for Comparative and Computational Musicology

3.7.3 Music Perception Among the Tsiman and Beyond

Unifying theories: bonding and signaling

5.3.2 Phylogenetic Hypotheses

Musical protolanguage

Songs vs. instrumental music

5.3.3 An Extended Social Bonding Hypothesis for the Evolution of Human Musicality and Language from Primate Vocalisation

5.3.4 Testing Hypotheses for the Evolution of Musicality with Cross-Species Data

6 Applications: Copyright, Music Therapy, Language Acquisition, Cultural Heritage, Social Bonding, AI, and Beyond

6.1 Music, Science, and Values

6.2 The ``Mozart effect'' as a Cautionary Example of Overhyping Music Science

6.3 Music Therapy/Medical Ethnomusicology

6.4 Language Therapy and 2nd Language Learning

6.5 Social Bonding and Cross-Cultural Understanding

6.6 Copyright

6.7 Music Education, Cultural Heritage, and Cultural Endangerment/Recovery

6.8 ``World''/``Fusion'' Music

6.9 Artificial Intelligence as Friend and (More Likely) Foe

6.10 Conclusions

7 Epilogue: ``Many Voices'' and the Future of Qualitative Comparative Musicology

Appendix: Companion audio/ tutorial/ data/ code availability statements

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on February 2, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9780191872303

019187230X

9780192570826

019257082X

OCLC:

1570638306

Publisher Number:

CIPO000345022

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license