音樂無國界

當你想到遠方某地或某種文化的歌曲，腦海里浮現的是什么？是熟悉的，還是完全不同于你習慣的、令你費解難猜的獨特曲調？遍覽各種文化，我們出于不同的目的寫不同的歌，但它們卻能通行于世界各地，盡管它們在各個文化內部存在著令人難以置信的多樣性。

“Cultures all over the world have different kinds of music in each society， but what this means is when you zoom out， society’s musical behaviors are pretty similar，” says Sam Mehr， a psychologist at Harvard.

Mehr started working on the project after he kept reading a trite line at the top of research papers that said， “Music is universal.” But every time he came across the statement， there wasn’t a citation to back it up.

To see if there was any substance to this claim， he and his fellow researchers created two databases： one with descriptions from anthropologists of what happened when music from 1960s was playing， and another of 118 audio recordings from 86 different societies.

He found that there were three characteristics of behavior that consistently characterized music： formality， arousal （or how calming or exciting a song was）， and religiosity. Most societies had music that fell into more than one category.

Given those categories， both machines and foreign listeners were able to pick out a song’s purpose in further tests. The researchers investigated responses from community scientists across the globe， looking at how well they could identify the type of tune based on samples from an online quiz.

哈佛大學心理學家薩姆·梅爾說：“世界各地的文化在每個社會都有不同種類的音樂，不過這意味著當你放眼全局時會發現，社會的音樂行為十分相似。”

梅爾開始致力于這項研究的起因是，他在科研論文的開篇總是讀到這樣一句老生常談的話：“音樂無國界。”可是每次他碰到這種表述，都沒有看到用來支撐的引證。

為了驗證這一說法是否有任何實質性的依據，他和其他研究人員創建了兩個數據庫：一個是人類學家描述的20世紀60年代的音樂播放時出現的情況，另一個則是來自86個不同社會的118段錄音。

他發現，音樂始終有三種行為特征：禮節性、情緒的喚起（或者說歌曲能起到多少讓人平靜或令人興奮的作用）和對宗教的虔誠。大多數社會擁有不止一類音樂。

根據這些分類，機器和外國聽眾都能在進一步測試中分辨出歌曲的目的。研究人員調查了全球各地研究社會群體的科學家的反應，看看他們可以在多大程度上依據在線測試樣本確定曲調類型。

People did a decent job guessing the themes， especially for dance songs and lullabies， says? Manvir Singh， a Harvard PhD student in the department of human evolutionary biology. “Music appears in this huge diversity of behavioral， social， emotional context in human societies，” says he， “but it does so similarly across societies.”

Daniel Levitin， a cognitive scientist who’s done similar research on music and evolution， believes this kind of systematic approach to understanding music is long overdue. He also says that the study points to an evolutionary history between music and humans.

“The musical brain may have led to things that we take for granted in human nature， like compassion and empathy， because music uniquely can help us achieve those states，” Levitan explains. “Not to mention awe， appreciation， and gratitude.”

For Mehr and his team， the hunt for data is just the beginning. The lab is running more detailed quizzes to dig into how people respond to what they hear. They also hope to do studies on different populations like infants to see how they react to tunes like lullabies from faraway societies.

Singh says he also hopes to analyze lyrics and the way they shape people’s feelings and actions， even if it’s in a language they don’t understand. “Exploring the lyrics allows us to better understand how music can induce these emotional or behavioral responses，” says he， “but also， in a broader way， the world view of the people who are singing.”

哈佛大學人類進化生物學博士研究生曼維爾·辛格說，人們在猜測音樂主題方面表現得相當出色，尤其是在辨別舞曲和搖籃曲時。他說：“音樂在人類社會如此紛繁多樣的行為、社會和情感背景下出現，但它在各個社會所扮演的角色又極為相似。”

一直在音樂和進化領域開展類似研究的認知科學家丹尼爾·列維京認為，早就該用這種系統性方法來理解音樂了。他還說，這項研究表明音樂和人類有著共同的進化史。

列維京解釋說：“音樂頭腦可能帶來了人性中我們視為理所當然的一些東西，比如同情與共情，因為音樂可以很好地讓我們達到那些狀態。敬畏、欣賞和感激就更不用說了。”

對梅爾和他的團隊來說，搜尋數據只是個開始。實驗室正在開展更為詳盡的測試，以便挖掘人們對自己聽到的東西有何反應。他們還想對嬰兒等不同人群展開研究，了解他們對來自遠方社會的搖籃曲等曲調有何反應。

辛格說，他還想分析歌詞以及它們如何影響人們的感受與行為，哪怕使用的是人們聽不懂的語言。他說：“深入研究歌詞讓我們更好地理解音樂如何帶來這些情感或行為反應，并且從更廣闊的意義上講更好地了解歌唱者的世界觀。”

Word Study

trite /tra?t/ adj. 老生常談的;陳腐的

citation /sa?'te??n/ n. 引證;引文

decent /'di?snt/ adj. 相當不錯的;得體的

And can’t you dress more decently—people will think you’re a tramp.

overdue /'??v?'dju?/ adj. 未做的;早該發生的

This car is overdue for a service.

awe /??/ n. 敬畏;驚嘆

“It’s magnificent，” she whispered in awe.

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