Why Do We Sing? Musicologists and Neuroscientists Seek an Answer

Last year Science Quickly looked across disciplines to piece apart the science of singing. To understand why humans sing, musicologists collaborated on an international study of folk music. To understand how we sing, neuroscientists differentiated how our brain processes speech and singing. Music enthusiast and associate mind and brain editor Allison Parshall takes us through some hallmark 2024 studies that, taken together, piece together the evolutionary origins of singing.

Recommended reading:

Hidden Patterns in Folk Songs Reveal How Music Evolved https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hidden-patterns-in-folk-songs-reveal-how-music-evolved/ 

Why You Can’t Get That Song Out of Your Head https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/why-do-songs-get-stuck-in-your-head/ 

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

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Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest associate mind and brain editor Allison Parshall. Our show is fact-checked by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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