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Outside/In

Why we sing

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Recently, our producer Justine Paradis noticed something. Humans really like to sing together in groups: birthday parties, sports games, church hymns, protest chants, singing along to Taylor Swift at the Eras concert… the list could get very long. But… why? Did singing play a part in human evolution? Why does singing together make us feel so good? Featuring Hannah Mayree, Ani Patel, Dor Shilton, and Arla Good.  For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.   SUPPORT To share your questions and feedback with Outside/In, call the show’s hotline and leave us a voicemail. The number is 1-844-GO-OTTER. No question is too serious or too silly. Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member. Subscribe to our (free) newsletter. Follow Outside/In on Instagram or BlueSky, or join our private discussion group on Facebook   LINKS Bobby McFerrin in 2009 at the World Science Festival, demonstrating the intuitive power of the pentatonic scale, and in 2010, improvising in a stadium in Germany with 60,000 singers. A short documentary about Sing For Your Life! and OneVoice Circle Singers. Check out Hannah Mayree’s music and work. Dor Shilton and Ani Patel collaborated on a paper (currently preprint) examining four societies where collective music-making is rare. Dor Shilton’s paper on the evolution of music as an “interactive technology” and open-access analysis of patterns in group singing. This journal presented the hypothesis of music as a mechanism for social bonding as part of an ongoing conversation.  SingWell’s forthcoming research on group singing, aging, and Parkinson’s disease. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry.

0:07.0

But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs.

0:16.6

Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers.

0:23.4

And hopefully make you see the world anew.

0:24.9

Radio Lab. Adventures on the edge of what we think we know.

0:28.8

Wherever you get your podcast.

0:30.6

Hey, Nate.

0:31.6

Hey, Justine.

0:32.4

So last September, I had a bunch of people over to my backyard.

0:37.2

The cicadas were buzzing.

0:39.3

We had kids running around, babies on blankets.

0:41.3

It was super intergenerational.

0:43.3

And what we were there to do was to sing together.

0:49.3

Kill ya home boys.

0:53.3

Let her go

0:55.3

Boy

0:56.4

sailing home word

0:59.6

To mingle-a-lay

1:01.4

This is so cool

1:03.3

That you do this

1:04.7

I feel like I did this

1:05.6

This is like a very college thing

...

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