27 Apr 2023

Native language could impact musical ability - study

From Morning Report, 8:56 am on 27 April 2023

Research released on Thursday morning suggests your native language could have an impact on your musical ability.

No caption

The study compared the melodic and rhythmic abilities of nearly half a million people, across 54 different languages.

It found tonal speakers, so languages like Mandarin, Cantonese, Thai and Vietnamese, are better able to discern between subtly different melodies.

Non-tonal speakers, like English, Spanish, French, and te reo Maori, are better able to tell when a rhythm is beating in time with music.

The study's lead author and head of the Music Lab, a University of Auckland and Yale University collaboration investigating how the human mind creates and perceives music, Dr Samuel Mehr, speaks with Ingrid Hipkiss.