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Actualité Des Universaux Musicaux Topics in Universals in Music Actualité des Universaux musicaux Topics in Universals in Music Actualité des Universaux musicaux Topics in Universals in Music Sous la direction de : Jean-Luc Leroy Copyright © 2012 Éditions des archives contemporaines Tous droits de traduction, de reproduction et d’adaptation réservés pour tous pays. Toute reproduction ou représentation intégrale ou partielle, par quelque procédé que ce soit (électronique, mécanique, photocopie, enregistrement, quelque système de stockage et de récupération d’information) des pages publiées dans le présent ouvrage faite sans autorisation écrite de l’éditeur, est interdite. Éditions des archives contemporaines 41, rue Barrault 75013 Paris (France) www.archivescontemporaines.com ISBN : 9782813000613 Avertissement : Les textes publiés dans ce volume n’engagent que la responsabilité de leurs auteurs. Pour faciliter la lecture, la mise en pages a été harmonisée, mais la spécificité de chacun, dans le système des titres, le choix de transcriptions et des abréviations, l’emploi de majuscules, la présentation des références bibliographiques, etc. a été le plus souvent conservée. 6. Musical universals: Perspectives from infancy Sandra E. TREHUB The search for musical universals continues to be inspired by the pervasive belief in language universals and their innate basis (e.g. Pinker, 1994). However, there are increasing challenges to the notion of language universals and to Universal Grammar, in particular. Evans and Levinson (2009) contend that misconceptions about cross- linguistic similarity have arisen from the consideration of a relatively small set of English-like languages. They point out that linguistic typologists have documented important differences in sounds, meaning, and syntax in the thousands of extant languages worldwide. Accordingly, they argue that cognitive scientists should be attempting to account for language diversity rather than similarity. Other scholars, including Christensen and Chater (2008), are challenging prevailing notions about the domain-specific biological factors that are presumed to underlie language structure and acquisition. They conceive of language as a complex cultural product that has emerged in response to human social needs. Syal and Finlay (2011) also consider social motivation as critical for the evolution and acquisition of language. In the case of music, there is general acknowledgement of a universal capacity or disposition for music but much less attention to the diverse ways of expressing that musicality across cultures (Blacking, 1995). Even the boundary between musical and non-musical behavior (i.e. what is music and what is not) differs across cultures (Nettl, 2005). In any case, the musical universals tentatively identified to date, including octave equivalence, five to seven notes per octave, unequal-step scales, temporal regularity, and repetition (Dowling & Harwood, 1984; Sloboda, 1985), are very basic as well as being derived primarily from relatively recent forms of music. Moreover, these universals focus largely on musical products rather than on behaviors, processes, or functions. 1. Musical universals in developmental perspective If there is a universal disposition for music, some signs of that disposition should be evident in early childhood. In fact, pre-verbal infants are surprisingly capable music listeners (Trehub & Hannon, 2006). For example, they detect subtle differences in musical pitch and timing (Trehub & Hannon, 2009) as well as global pitch and rhythm patterns (Hannon & Trehub, 2005a; Trehub, Thorpe, & Morrongiello, 1987a; Trehub & Thorpe, 1989). Moreover, they exhibit long-term memory for music heard regularly 6. Musical universals: Perspectives from infancy 6 (Saffran, Loman, & Robertson, 2000; Trainor, Wu, & Tsang, 2004), and they retain more detail from vocal than from instrumental renditions (Volkova, Trehub, & Schellenberg, 2006). By their first birthday, if not before, infants show sensitivity to culture-specific regularities in the music around them (Hannon & Trehub, 2005b; Soley & Hannon, 2010). Universal disposition for musical parenting Throughout the world music plays an important role in cultural rituals (Merker, 2009), fostering communal identity or goals, and regulating emotion or arousal (Blacking, 1995; Trehub, Hannon, & Schachner, 2010). A cross-cultural disposition for musical parenting is also evident. Caregivers everywhere soothe or amuse their infants with a musical repertoire consisting of lullabies and play songs (Trehub & Trainor, 1998). Lullabies are readily recognizable as such. For example, when naïve listeners hear pairs of foreign lullabies and non-lullabies matched on culture of origin and tempo, they easily identify the lullabies (Trehub, Unyk, & Trainor, 1993a), perhaps on the basis of their simplicity or repetitiveness (Unyk, Trehub, Trainor, & Schellenberg, 1992). What is remarkable is that listeners are equally successful at identifying lullabies from familiar musical cultures (i.e. Western European tradition) as from unfamiliar cultures (Trehub et al., 1993a). Although play songs also have a distinctive form, they are especially notable for their distinctive performances in infant caregiving contexts (Nakata & Trehub, 2011; Trehub et al., 1997). When naïve listeners hear paired samples of the same song by the same singer, one performed for an infant, the other performed informally with no audience, they readily identify the infant-directed version (Trainor, 1996; Trehub et al., 1997), even when the language and culture are unfamiliar (Trehub, Unyk, & Trainor, 1993b). Listeners seem to base their judgments primarily on the singer’s vocal tone rather than on the measurable differences in pitch level (higher) and tempo (slower) for infant-directed versions (Trainor, Clark, Huntley, & Adams, 1997; Trehub et al., 1997). Performances for infants also have more timing regularity and greater expressive variations in dynamics than typical informal performances of the same songs (Nakata & Trehub, 2011). Mothers do not seem to have conscious didactic goals when they sing to pre-verbal infants, but they intuitively highlight the structure of the music, especially its timing and pitch contours. Musical elements are also prominent in mothers’ speech to pre-verbal infants. For example, maternal speech involves a greatly expanded pitch range, exaggerated pitch contours, and considerable repetition (Fernald, 1991). There are similar pitch contours in mothers’ speech across cultures (Fernald et al., 1989), but the pitch intervals are individually distinctive (Bergeson & Trehub, 2007). These signature tunes may facilitate maternal voice recognition. Similarly, despite global similarities in some aspects of maternal singing, it is individually distinctive. In fact, maternal performances of the same song on different occasions are virtually identical in pitch level and tempo provided the infant’s mood is comparable (Bergeson & Trehub, 2002). As would be expected, mothers fine-tune 6. Musical universals: Perspectives from infancy 7 their performances to infants’ mood or state of arousal. Maternal affect or arousal also affects the nature of these performances. For example, maternal singing is more expressive when mother and infant can see one another than when they are separated by an opaque curtain (Trehub, Plantinga, & Russo, 2011, March). Heightened expressiveness in the face-to-face context cannot be attributed to mothers’ dependence on infant feedback because video feedback from the infant fails to close the expressiveness gap. Although spoken and sung interactions with infants are typically multimodal, featuring gestures, touch, and movement, researchers’ attention has focused largely on the acoustic features. What has escaped attention is that the visible components of maternal speech and singing differ substantially. For example, mothers smile and move considerably more when they sing than when they talk to infants (Plantinga, Trehub, & Russo, 2011, June). In fact, singing mothers commonly move in time with the music and smile almost continuously. 1.2. Universal responsiveness to musical parenting Infants are highly receptive to singing in the maternal style, as they are to speech in the maternal style (Cooper & Aslin, 1994; Fernald, 1985). For example, infants listen significantly longer to infant-directed singing than to non-infant-directed singing (Trainor, 1996), even as newborns (Masataka, 1999). When presented with audio- visual renditions of maternal speech and singing, infants are substantially more engaged by the singing than by the speech (Nakata & Trehub, 2004). Live maternal singing also modulates infant arousal, as reflected in changes in cortisol concentrations in their saliva (Shenfield, Trehub, & Nakata, 2003). What is the essence of maternal singing for the infant audience? The simple, repetitive structure of lullabies and play songs is likely to make some contribution. However, expressive voice quality, facial gestures, touch, and movement seem to make a much greater contribution. The various vocal and non-vocal features are combined to yield performances that are irresistible to infants. 2. Implications The available evidence is consistent with a human disposition for music listening and learning (Trehub et al., 2010), which may capitalize on our capacity for vocal and bodily imitation (Merker, 2009) and on our intensely social nature (Christensen & Chater, 2008; Syal & Finlay, 2011). The cross-species disposition to care for infants seems to include, in the human case, musical
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