A new study carried out by the University of Exeter, UK, and Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan, has found that songs from around the world tend to share features, including a strong rhythm, that enable coordination in social situations and encourage group bonding.
Despite decades of scepticism about the presence of cross-culturally universal aspects of music, the study provides strong evidence for the existence of common features in global music.
The results, which are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), support the idea that music is a powerful social adhesive that helps bond societies together.