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patrickesavage.bsky.social
Pat Savage
@patrickesavage.bsky.social
2.5K followers 690 following 680 posts
Director: @compmusiclab.bsky.social. Rutherford Discovery Fellow @U Auckland. Assoc. Prof. @Keio U. PI @manyvoices.bsky.social. Music, evolution, diversity. He/him. Tangata tiriti.
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patrickesavage.bsky.social
Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · Jun 11
7.5 years after signing the contract, I finally submitted the full manuscript of my book to Oxford University Press!!!
Thanks to Keio's Fukuzawa Fund, it will be published open access. You can already read the submitted version as a preprint at osf.io/b36fm
I hope you all find it useful!
Comparative Musicology Evolution, Universals, and the Science of the World’s Music Patrick E. Savage Senior Research Fellow, School of Psychology, University of Auckland / Waipapa Taumata Rau Associate Professor, Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University Contents Prologue: How to read/teach this book ii Epigraphs vi Foreword (Psyche Loui, President of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition) x Foreword (Svanibor Pettan, Past President of the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance) xii Acknowledgments xiv Ch. 1. Introduction: Aims, chapter structure, and key definitions 1 Ch. 2. Tutorial: Acoustic comparison within and between societies (and species) 12 Ch. 3. History: The rise and fall and rise of comparative musicology 34 Ch. 4. Universals: Absolute, statistical, and non-universal aspects of music beyond the “universal language” metaphor 72 Ch. 5. Evolution: Cultural and biological evolution of music(ality), language, and animal song 94 Ch. 6. Applications: Copyright, music therapy, language acquisition, cultural heritage, social bonding, AI, and beyond 120 Epilogue: “Many Voices” and the future of qualitative comparative musicology 135 Appendix: Companion audio recordings/code availability statement 139 Index 140
Reposted by Pat Savage
carlbergstrom.com
So excited to be visiting Aotearoa New Zealand in February for the Capitol City Complex Systems Symposium 2026 (with side trips to Otago, Canterbury, and U. Auckland).

If you're in Wellington or fancy a visit, check out the program.

www.tepunahamatatini.ac.nz/conferences/...
Capital City Complex Systems Symposium 2026
The Capital City Complex Systems Symposium 2026 explores cutting-edge knowledge of complex systems & complexity & how this knowledge is used to drive system change.
www.tepunahamatatini.ac.nz
November 25, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Reposted by Pat Savage
jbakcoleman.bsky.social
This is gonna be a shitshow
November 25, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Reposted by Pat Savage
irisvanrooij.bsky.social
“Ultimately, the collective strategy of AI companies threatens to deskill precisely those people who are essential for society to function(…) automation of knowledge and culture by private companies is a worrying prospect – conjuring dystopian and outright fascistic scenarios.” — @olivia.science
AI Is Hollowing Out Higher Education
Olivia Guest & Iris van Rooij urge teachers and scholars to reject tools that commodify learning, deskill students, and promote illiteracy.
www.project-syndicate.org
October 17, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Pat Savage
tecumsehfitch.bsky.social
My art is not "AI slop"
I am very proud of this artwork, based on my own watercolors and drawings. It IS scientifically accurate, based directly on the work of the great comparative neuroanatomist Glenn Northcutt (and inspired by Georg Striedter's wonderful book). ChatGPT did the styling only...
November 21, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Reposted by Pat Savage
stephaniemlee.bsky.social
NEW: The leading organization for music scholars — the American Musicological Society — is facing an uproar from hundreds of its members, who are threatening a boycott unless it meets a chorus of demands. www.chronicle.com/article/why-...
Why a Musicology Society’s Members Are in Revolt
The leading organization for music scholars is facing an uproar from hundreds of members, who are threatening a boycott unless it meets a chorus of demands.
www.chronicle.com
November 20, 2025 at 9:55 PM
patrickesavage.bsky.social
Review on language evolution just published - haven't read properly yet but from a quick skim looks important!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
ORiGiNS OF LANGUAGe What enables human language? A biocultural framework Inbal Arnon1*, Liran Carmel2, Nicolas Claidière3,4,5, W. Tecumseh Fitch6, Susan Goldin-Meadow7, Simon Kirby8, Kazuo Okanoya9, Limor Raviv10,11, Lucie Wolters12, Simon E. Fisher13,14* Explaining the origins of language is a key challenge in understanding ourselves as a species. We present an empirical framework that draws on synergies across fields to facilitate robust studies of language evolution. The approach is multifaceted, seeing language emergence as dependent on the convergence of multiple capacities, each with their own evolutionary trajectories. It is explicitly biocultural, recognizing and incorporating the importance of both biological preparedness and cultural transmission as well as interactions between them. We demonstrate this approach through three case studies that examine the evolution of different facets involved in human language (vocal production learning, linguistic structure, and social underpinnings).
November 20, 2025 at 8:57 PM
Reposted by Pat Savage
rhiannongiddens.bsky.social
Excited to reveal the cover of Color Me Country: A Celebration of Black Women Who Shaped Country Music! I contributed illustrations to this beautiful new book, that was edited by Kelly McCartney and Rissi Palmer. All proceeds go to the Color Me Country Fund.

Learn more: bit.ly/440GH0z
November 20, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Pat Savage
pci-regreports.bsky.social
A warm welcome to two new PCI RR-friendly journals: Oxford Open Neuroscience (edited by @samgilbert.bsky.social & team) & Cadernos de Linguística @cadlin.bsky.social, edited by Miguel Oliveira, Jr.

Full journal entries:
rr.peercommunityin.org/about/pci_rr...

rr.peercommunityin.org/about/pci_rr...
Statement of commitment: Cadernos de Linguística will automatically offer Stage 1 in-principle acceptance (IPA) to any Stage 1 RR within the journal’s disciplinary scope that receives IPA at PCI RR, and will accept without further peer review any Stage 2 RR that has been recommended by PCI RR, subject to the manuscript meeting the journal requirements concerning statistical thresholds and bias control. Disciplinary scope: Research in linguistics that advances understanding of human language. Statement of commitment: Oxford Open Neuroscience will automatically offer Stage 1 in-principle acceptance (IPA) to any Stage 1 RR within the journal’s disciplinary scope that receives IPA at PCI RR, and will accept without further peer review any Stage 2 RR that has been recommended by PCI RR, subject to the authors paying the applicable article processing charge and the manuscript meeting the journal requirements concerning bias control and formatting. Disciplinary scope: Research covering the widest interpretation of neuroscience in health and disease, encompassing basic, translational, and clinical research, and sub-fields including cellular and molecular neuroscience, neural development, neurogenetics, systems and behavioural neuroscience, computational neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience.
November 19, 2025 at 6:20 AM
patrickesavage.bsky.social
Lovely photos from Rebecca McMillan from the @royalsocietynz.bsky.social Research Honours Award ceremony last week (with my parents, @danya-pav.bsky.social, Prof Geoff Chase, and NZ Governor-General, Her Excellency The Right Honourable Dame Cindy Kiro)
www.royalsociety.org.nz/news/researc...
Me receiving my award from Prof Geoff Chase and Her Excellency The Right Honourable Dame Cindy Kiro (NZ Governor-General) Me with my parents (Martha and Mike Savage) and PhD student and collaborator Danya Pavlovich All award winners and special guests at the Research Honours Aotearoa ceremony at Government House (Te Whanganui-Ā-Tara Wellington)
November 19, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Reposted by Pat Savage
karenattiah.bsky.social
A reminder that seven years ago almost to the day, the CIA determined that Mohammed Bin Salman ordered the killing of @washingtonpost.com journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

I hired and worked with Jamal for a year.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/nation...
CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination
Audio recordings, intercepted phone calls and other intelligence link Mohammed bin Salman to killing that Saudis say was conducted by rogue elements.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 18, 2025 at 6:05 PM
patrickesavage.bsky.social
👍👍

www.rnz.co.nz/life/books/t...
Top writers ruled out of NZ book awards due to AI covers
For the first time AI regulations have been applied to the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, including every detail from cover to cover.
www.rnz.co.nz
November 18, 2025 at 7:52 AM
patrickesavage.bsky.social
Obviously would have to be called “The Three Billy GOATS”
12tone.nebula.tv 12tone @12tone.nebula.tv · 8d
Supergroup of Billy Joel, Billy Idol, and Billie Eilish send tweet
November 17, 2025 at 10:10 AM
patrickesavage.bsky.social
Important editorial by Malik Sharif on (co)authorship criteria in ethnomusicology and beyond:
doi.org/10.52413/mm....
On Authorship Criteria in Music and Minority Studies, Ethnomusicology, and Related Disciplines: An Editorial | Music & Minorities
doi.org
November 16, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Reposted by Pat Savage
komaniecki.bsky.social
I tried to summarize the AI/music/IP law panel from this year’s AMS/SMT conference for a more general audience. Thanks to Lauren Wilson for chairing such a great series of speakers.
November 15, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Reposted by Pat Savage
culturalevolsoc.bsky.social
The deadline has been extended - there is still time to get your abstracts in to join us in Morocco!
zhgarfield.com Zach Garfield @zhgarfield.com · 10d
The submission deadline for #CESRabat has been extended to 30 November

@ces2026.bsky.social @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social
ces2026.bsky.social ces2026 @ces2026.bsky.social · 15d
👉 A reminder that the deadline for submitting your abstract to the CES 2026 #CESRabat is the 16th of November.

🔗Submit here: airess.fgses-um6p.ma/ces2026

We look forward to seeing you in Rabat!
November 16, 2025 at 3:40 AM
patrickesavage.bsky.social
Hope you’re all enjoying the beautiful day like this tūī at the top of Mākara peak
Tūī perched at the top of Mākara peak
November 15, 2025 at 10:43 PM
Reposted by Pat Savage
rebeccasear.bsky.social
The paper was accepted just a week after submission and claims no data were analysed, despite data clearly being analysed in the paper. The author gives his affiliation as Richard Lynn’s Ulster Institute for Social Research. Wouldn’t be happy if I were on the editorial board of this journal
Data Availability No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study. Received 23 September 2025 Revised 26 September 2025 Accepted 30 September 2025 Authors and Affiliations Ulster Institute for Social Research, London, UK Davide Piffer
November 12, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by Pat Savage
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Pat Savage
hansonmark.bsky.social
Funders can drive change. Authors can't. Authors are producers, not consumers. Producers don't decide demand, consumers do. Funders and research institutes must demand change of their authors, or withhold their funds. It's that simple. Funders have all the cards.

10/n
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
patrickesavage.bsky.social
Ironically, I left a workshop to give this interview on Radio NZ where I described how singing Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi bonded people together, and when I returned I found I had missed out on singing Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi with the others at the workshop! www.rnz.co.nz/national/pro...
Why does music cross borders and boundaries?
Dr Patrick Savage is a musicologist at the University of Auckland who studies how music has evolved across time, languages and cultures. He won an early career research excellence award for His latest...
www.rnz.co.nz
November 12, 2025 at 4:41 AM
patrickesavage.bsky.social
I was deeply honoured to receive the 2025 NZ Research Excellence Award for Humanities tonight. It would never happened without the support of my family and 100+ collaborators, so I was delighted that my parents and several students/collaborators could join!
www.royalsociety.org.nz/what-we-do/m...
2025 Research Excellence Award for Humanities: Music can bond us together better than language, new research finds Dr Patrick Savage of Waipapa Taumata Rau – the University of Auckland has won the Early Career Research Excellence Award for the Humanities for his interdisciplinary research on the relationships between music and language in different cultures. Me with my parents (Martha & Mike Savage) and PhD student (Danya Pavlovich) outside Government House after tonight's Research Honours Aotearoa award ceremony. Me with my honours student, Nelson Shi, outside Government House before the award ceremony.
November 11, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Reposted by Pat Savage
francescatalamini.bsky.social
Finally, our 4-year long project has been published! We have conducted a multi-lab study comparing STM of musicians and nonmusicians, collecting many other cognitive, personality, musical, and demographic variables!
A big thank you to all collaborators!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Do Musicians Have Better Short-Term Memory Than Nonmusicians? A Multilab Study - Massimo Grassi, Francesca Talamini, Gianmarco Altoè, Elvira Brattico, Anne Caclin, Barbara Carretti, Véronique Drai-Zer...
Musicians are often regarded as a positive example of brain plasticity and associated cognitive benefits. This emerges when experienced musicians (e.g., musicia...
journals.sagepub.com
November 7, 2025 at 10:49 AM
Reposted by Pat Savage
tuomaseerola.bsky.social
Delighted to share our latest research on consonance. We asked participants from India and UK to rate how “tense” different harmonic intervals sound. We found that musicians across both cultures agreed almost perfectly on which intervals feel tense or relaxed, however, ....
November 6, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Reposted by Pat Savage
gillianrbrown1.bsky.social
📢 Here is my commentary about the pitfalls of taking an impoverished evolutionary approach to culture, which include 'the limitations of a unidirectional model of evolution' and 'the neglect of niche construction theory'. #ehbea #evolution #psychscisky 🧪

🧵 1/2

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
The pitfalls of an impoverished approach to culture: Commentary on Baumard and André
www.sciencedirect.com
November 5, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Pat Savage
zixuanjia.bsky.social
🎶 Excited to share our first Stage 2 manuscript - the Mandarin results from our Many Voices 3 project! Led by me, supervised by @patrickesavage.bsky.social and Suzanne Purdy
📖Our paper replicated the cross-cultural speech-song acoustic differences reported by @yutoozaki.bsky.social. osf.io/gwavn_v1
OSF
osf.io
November 10, 2025 at 8:13 AM