Why Do We Sing? Musicologists and Neuroscientists Seek an Answer

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.3 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.6	For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman. We're wrapping up our week of summer reruns
0:36.6	with one of my absolute favorite
0:38.3	Science Quickly episodes. Back in October, Siam Associate News editor Alison Partial took us on a fascinating
0:44.2	sonic journey through the evolution of music. What turned speech into song? And why did humans
0:50.0	start singing in the first place? A couple of 2024 studies offered a few clues.
0:57.0	Allison, thanks for coming back on the pod. Always a pleasure to have you.
1:00.6	Thanks for having me. So I hear we're going to talk about music today.
1:05.1	We are going to talk about music. My favorite topic. I think your favorite topic, too.
1:09.1	I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess I would love to know if you have a favorite folk song. That is a really tough question because I love, you know, folk music and all of its weird modern subgenres. But if I had to pick one that jumps out that I'm like, I know this is genuinely at least a version of an old folk song and not like something Bob Dylan wrote would be in the pines, which I probably love mostly because I grew up kind of in the pines, in the pine barrens.
1:39.1	So it feels, you know, appropriate.
1:42.0	Will you sing it for me?
1:43.3	Oh, don't make me sing. Don't make me sing. Don't make me sing. Okay. Yes. Yay. Okay. I'm sad.
1:49.8	In the pines, in the pines where the sun don't even shine. I'd shiver the whole night through.
1:59.6	My girl, my girl, don't lie to me tell me where did you sleep last night
2:08.3	that's it clapping yay oh that was lovely i don't honestly i didn't know if i expected you to sing it
2:14.1	i'm very if you i'm going to sing i'm very Well, I will not be singing my favorite folk song. I don't even
	...

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