https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-makes-a-song-its-the-same-recipe-in-every-culture/ > From the first soothing lullabies babies hear to the funereal dirges that accompany the deceased, music is a fixture of the human experience. The latest findings on the cultural basis of singing have ascertained that certain song types—whether lullaby, dance, love or healing melodies—turn up in all cultures. And each kind of song has common cross-cultural acoustic features. > By analyzing a database of ethnographic descriptions and recordings of songs from around the world, a research team from multiple universities discovered commonalities in acoustic features such as tone, tempo and pitch. The organization of melodies around a hierarchical chord structure—tonality—appears as a common attribute across all cultures included in the database. Music varies more within than between cultures, indicating that each uses song in the same social context.