Objective
Musicality can be defined as the biological and cognitive abilities necessary to appreciate and create music, which makes song production a significant marker of the trait in the human species. In analogy, some acoustic behaviours of other species, whether birds, whales or primates, have also been traditionally termed songs. However, to date the relatively few studies of parallels between human and animal songs have focused mainly on bird songs. Broader cross-species comparison of animal songs would contribute to addressing the evolutionary origins of music, by disentangling the role of phylogeny and behavioural traits hypothesised to underlie musicality in humans.
Two exemplary mammalian singers are humpback whales and gibbons. Their tonal and patterned vocal sequences are traditionally termed songs, but features of musicality have not yet been rigorously assessed. Such an observation would provide critical insights, as these two species possess proposed fundamental traits of musicality (they both have harmonically rich vocalisations, humpback whales are vocal learners and gibbons sing in duets), and they lie at very distinct branches of the mammalian phylogenetic tree. This research will thus test the existence of musical features in humpback whale and gibbon songs.
Tests for the presence of overtone-based pitch selection (i.e. frequency intervals corresponding to small-integer proportions drawn from the harmonic series) and expressiveness (i.e. the oscillation between repetition and variation found in human music) have been successful in bird songs. Systematic measurements for these two features will be conducted in passive acoustic recordings of wild singing humpback whales and gibbons, for their songs to be compared with human music. This search will benefit from machine learning based vocalisation detection, classification and similarity measurements, as well as sub-unit segmentation, allowing a systematic analysis of musicality, robust against both signals
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology mammalogy primatology
- natural sciences biological sciences biological morphology comparative morphology
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology mammalogy cetology
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1010 Wien
Austria
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.