#694 Patrick Savage: Musicology, the Evolution of Music, and Cross-Cultural Studies
RECORDED ON JULY 26th 2022.
Dr. Patrick Savage is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies at Keio SFC, where he directs the CompMusic Lab for comparative and computational musicology. He has academic degrees in music composition (BA), psychology (MSc) and musicology (PhD), and has won national awards singing Japanese folk song. His research on the evolution of music and culture has appeared in outlets including Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, The New York Times, and The Economist.
In this episode, we talk about musicology. We start with the evolution of music, and how it relates to language and bird song. We discuss the (social) functions of music. We get into the cultural evolution of music, and cross-cultural regularities. We ask if music is a uniquely human phenomenon, and if we can learn more about biological and cultural diversity by studying musical evolution. We talk about music copyright laws. Finally, we address the main challenges of cross-cultural work in music cognition, and talk about underexplored questions in musicology.
Time Links:
Intro
What do we know about the evolution of music?
Are there similarities between music, language, and bird song?
The (social) functions of music
The cultural evolution of music
Cross-cultural regularities
Is music a uniquely human phenomenon?
Can we learn more about biological and cultural diversity by studying musical evolution?
Studying music copyright laws
The challenges of cross-cultural work in music cognition
Underexplored questions in musicology
Follow Dr. Savage’s work!
Follow Dr. Savage’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/3bvSc7C
CompMusic Lab: https://bit.ly/3PWEtWs
Website: https://bit.ly/3tZJKD2
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/3JnBPpE
Twitter handle: @PatrickESavage