A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review Regarding Musical Universality in Academic Literature.

Abstract

Music Universality is a widely discussed phenomenon within areas of psychology as well as ethnomusicology, and these disciplines often differ in their interpretations of universality. Evolutionary psychology in particular is guided by an empirical scientific philosophy that argues musicality is innate within human nature. However, ethnomusicology is often guided by interpretive research designs that preserve the nuance of universality to argue that the experience of music is highly. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to reconcile these differing perspectives in an interdisciplinary systematic review method that utilizes thematic analysis and meta-analysis of appropriate studies in order to answer two common discourses on musicality: the extent to which innate musicality verses cultural factors affects musical perception and how music can be utilized to communicate messages cross-culturally. The meta-analysis demonstrated that cultural factors serve as a more consistent factor that influences musical perception than any theory of innate, universal musicality, yet the thematic analysis was more divisive in its conclusions regarding music’s ability to facilitate cross-cultural communication, implying that the phenomenon is not yet well understood in the most recent literature. These findings indicate that both types of disciplines are converging in their conclusions regarding perceptual factors of music experience that refutes the universality argument, but other topics like cross-cultural communication lack the scientific rigor to create a unified theory of such a phenomenon. Therefore, despite the differences in academic philosophy, these fields are increasingly utilizing scientific evidence along with interpretive evidence to develop more sophisticated theories of human musicality.