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Pat Savage

@patrickesavage.bsky.social

2.4K followers 680 following 610 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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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

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KOJAMF🤘🖤🤘 @kojamf.bsky.social · 3d

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 2d

Yes, this is great. Have you considered including something like that "AI is research misconduct" wording in the title?

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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 7d

I never met Jane Goodall, but she loomed over much of my reporting over the years. With @emilyanthes.bsky.social I wrote a piece about her scientific legacy. Gift link: nyti.ms/46PGBtd

nyti.ms

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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 8d

Relatedly, I’m curious: how do people feel about reading books vs listening to audiobooks? It was only really with audiobooks I was able to rediscover the joy of reading for fun since feeling like I didn’t have time to sit and read (especially after becoming a parent)

Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 9d

The real generational divide is people who refuse to watch a video if it could be an article versus people who refuse to read an article if it could be a video

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Claire Zagorski, MSc, EMT-P @clairezagorski.bsky.social · 9d

Hi! Did you know that you aren’t pronouncing axolotl correctly?

Suppression of indigenous languages by the Spanish is one of the Four Wounds of Colonization. This is a small subversion of colonial power you can use!

Axolotl is a Nahuatl word, and it sounds like this:

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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 12d

How much did Colossal pay you for this ad (sorry, “Career Feature”)?

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Tomer Ullman @tomerullman.bsky.social · 14d

Although we cannot offer to move your review request further, we believe Communications Tomer may find it of interest, see the link to transfer your review there.

I'm sorry to not respond more positively, and I hope that you continue to see Tomer Ullman as a venue for your future review requests.

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Dr Tara McAllister @taramcallister.bsky.social · 15d

I really like our paper published today. It is written directly for Māori and Pacific prospective and current PhD students in STEM www.journal.mai.ac.nz/10.20507/MAI...

www.journal.mai.ac.nz

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Ben Dickson @drbenomycin.bsky.social · 15d

The working link to Tara's latest, share this with the Māori and Pacific grads around you!

Dr Tara McAllister @taramcallister.bsky.social · 15d

Damn pēhea tēnei? www.journal.mai.ac.nz/system/files...

www.journal.mai.ac.nz

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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 15d

Non-citizen permanent residents can vote in New Zealand

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manvir singh @manvir.bsky.social · 16d

Honored to have been interviewed for this week's issue of @currentbiology.bsky.social!

Current Biology @currentbiology.bsky.social · 16d

From burying beetles to shamans, follow Manvir Singh @manvir.bsky.social in his sweeping Q&A from our latest issue.

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Manvir Singh

Interview with Manvir Singh, who studies the evolutionary and cognitive origins of human cultural behaviors at the University of California, Davis.

www.cell.com

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David W Lawson @davidwlawson.bsky.social · 20d

Teaching advice please —

I’m deciding if I should replace traditional paper assignments with an alternative now that we are all battling AI generated student papers…

But what is the best alternative?

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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 20d

I’ve started usually requiring all students to give group oral presentations with Q&A in addition to final papers. And in-class participation is weighted most.
Doesn’t solve everything but has helped.

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Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 20d

HEY GUYS Let's take money from basic science and use give it the outcome of basic science 🤡
#NZGovtAntiScience
www.nzherald.co.nz/business/ret...

Govt's $70m boost for AI

Funding will be over 10 years and will be rolled out in two phases.

www.nzherald.co.nz

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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 20d

🙃

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Guy Lavender Forsyth @guylavenderforsyth.bsky.social · 20d

New paper alert! 🧪

www.doi.org/10.1057/s415...

Language endangerment in Vanuatu: Bislama likely does pose a threat in the world’s most language-diverse country - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - Language endangerment in Vanuatu: Bislama likely does pose a threat in the world’s most language-diverse country

www.doi.org

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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 22d

How to quantify the impact of AI on long-run cultural evolution? Published today, I give it a go!

400+ years of strategic dynamics in the game of Go (Baduk/Weiqi), from feudalism to AlphaGo!

Miyagawa Shuntei's 1898 painting, "Playing Go (Japanese Chess)"

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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 25d

The count down starts for #CESRabat! Follow @ces2026.bsky.social and join us May 11-13 next year for an exciting meeting in Rabat, Morocco.

Massive thanks to the #CESRabat organising committee:
Sarah Alami (co-chair)
Mathieu Charbonneau (co-chair)
Zachary Garfield
Edmond Seabright

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Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 22d

man rolling rock up hill
how it started how its going

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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 23d

Harvard Sues Ex-HBS Professor Gino for Defamation, Accusing Her of Falsifying Evidence

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Harvard Sues Ex-HBS Professor Gino for Defamation, Accusing Her of Falsifying Evidence | News | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard sued behavioral scientist Francesca Gino for defamation in August, alleging the former Harvard Business School professor sent the school a falsified dataset to prove she did not commit data fr...

www.thecrimson.com

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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 27d

From a few months ago:
www.newsweek.com/peter-turchi...

Professor who predicted 2020s unrest sees US sliding deeper into crisis

Fifteen years ago Peter Turchin warned America was on the brink of a decade of growing political unrest. This is what he says now.

www.newsweek.com

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 29d

Re-listening to the Sinners soundtrack - what a series of non-stop bangers! Each track has such a rich history. Enjoyed learning about the origins/meaning of "Pick Poor Robin Clean" in this post:
thedocumentrecordsstore.com/sinners-pick...

The lyrics have sparked debate for decades. While the title evokes imagery reminiscent of the English nursery rhyme “Who Killed Cock Robin?”—a rhyme dating back to at least 1744 and catalogued as Roud Folk Song Index number 494 , there is no concrete evidence to suggest a direct lineage between the two

Is it about gambling? Hunger? Power? The reference to “gambling for Sadie” suggests a dice game, yet the chilling chorus —

I picked his head, I picked his feet / Would’ve picked his body, but it wasn’t fit to eat…

— evokes starvation or even cannibalistic metaphor. Scholar Elijah Wald has noted its ties to minstrel tradition, while Mance Lipscomb spoke of hunting robins during hard times. Others argue it’s rooted in the “dozens,” a verbal sparring tradition full of witty, biting insults.

So is “picking poor robin clean” a metaphor for utter destruction? Emotional exploitation? Taking all one can from the vulnerable? Possibly all of the above.

And that, perhaps, is the point. The magic of the song lies in its ambiguity.

"Pick Poor Robin Clean" singing scene from Sinners

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manvir singh @manvir.bsky.social · 29d

A reminder that the deadline for commentary proposals for my new BBS paper is tomorrow!

An honor of publishing with BBS is having thoughtful colleagues engage with one's work, and I can't wait to see y'all what think.

manvir singh @manvir.bsky.social · Aug 25

Why do societies reliably develop strikingly similar traditions like dance songs, hero stories, shamanism & justice institutions?

In a new BBS target article, I propose a theory for such "super-attractors" + cultural evolution more broadly. Now open for commentary: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · Sep 8

Here's my review of Andrew Ford's "Shortest history of music" that was published last year but hadn't come onto my radar until now.

Curious if others have any thoughts?
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

My Goodreads review of "The shortest history of music" by Andrew Ford:

The idea of a short history of all music is great. I liked the first chapter that actually tried to engage with diverse musical traditions. But most of the rest of the book fell into the standard trap of mostly discussing Western classical composers, with a small section on African-American blues and jazz and a few mentions of other traditions sprinkled throughout.

It felt in between a popular and academic book: too many composer/musician names and musicological jargon for a non-expert, not enough details for an expert. It's hard to complain too much when there aren’t many better examples out there, but I’d probably recommend Ted Gioia’s “Music: A subversive history” instead to most readers.