As a Chinese-American and professional musician, I was disappointed in the pell-mell conclusions of this report.

While I do agree that all humans have greater capacity to recognize pitch, I find this analysis deeply flawed. The research cited does not account for cultural/social factors: the differences in content or rigor of training between the Chinese and American music students.

Having studied at conservatories in the U.S. and spent one year studying in Beijing, I am certain that there is no comparison between the rigorous training that is the norm for kids in China and the kind of theoretical training an American music student gets at a young age (usually none).

The sheer number of hours, the discipline enforced by watchful parents, the basic music theory education that those Chinese (and Chinese-American)students have had should be taken into consideration.

These are the factors I would posit lead to that Chinese girl playing Rachmaninoff while Jad was playing Frere Jacques - not some biological, genetic or even necessarily linguistic advantage.

Furthermore, the size of the study is too small to be conclusive (88 Chinese students, 115 American students). I'd be really interested to see a larger-scale study that accounts for differences in musical training.

I'd love to be the one to introduce you to Nick Bertke, also known as Pogo, a brilliant remix artist.

His tune "Upular" is a melodic remix of spoken dialogue from Pixar's "UP." The highly fragmented vocal clips blend together to make a beautiful arrangement of musical notes hidden away in the dialogue. It is a prime example of the extent to which even non-tonal languages contain musical elements - and it's catchy. I hope you enjoy.

http://tinyurl.com/Pogo-Upular

Maybe one important aspect of music is predictability. Once the phrase is heard several times, we predict it, we join in its production, and it becomes music. When we listen to talk, we just receive, but when we listen to music, we always participate, even if we hear it for the first time.

I'm currently completing my Masters in Composition and this episode would've been brilliant 2 years ago before I chose my thesis topic - I researching the interrelationship of words and music and this would've been a remarkable resource. Oh well, I guess I'll have to keep in touch for my PhD!!!

Ken in Atlanta. Did you teach me Ear Training at BCM in 1985? College Singers? If so I'm so happy to see your post/comment and I know you have perfect pitch so its totally unfair to those of us with only relative pitch...thanks to you! BH

ever since I learned about tonal languages 30 years ago, I've always wondered... how do children & people who are "tone deaf" learn a completely tonal language?

I'm a native Mandarin speaker... I never knew the language was this complicated! We just spoke it. Although sometimes we WOULD make fun of each other if our notes slip, but we never put that much thought into it (ie: perfect pitch).

I was listening to the "Musical Language" show on the way home from work today and was struck by the implications of dissonant noises causing release of dopamine in the brain. Do you think that, perhaps, people who have irregular dopamine levels would be drawn to a particular kind of music that would cause the release of dopamine that would even out those levels? Could we self-medicate with sound? I would love to see a study that analyzed dopamine levels in people who like heavy metal music as opposed to someone who likes classical music.

this episode is mindblowingly awesome.

Every now and then, I find myself walking around the house, or on the bus, or in the school library, humming "sometimes behaves so strangely..." The worst part of it, though, is that since discovering your show, I tell all my friends to listen to it, so now "sometimes behaves so strangely" counts as an earworm in my circle! Thanks (both sincere and sarcastic) for your work, and for bringing such amazing, scientific concepts down to earth-level understanding!

Ever since I discovered Radio lab, my IPOD did not play anything else. This episode especially was more informative and insightful. Science, arts, culture and personal anecdotes perfectly blended. Thank you very much!

You guys are right. "Sometimes behave so strangely" becomes musical after repetition... while everywhere else in the sentence, it's still words...

I was watching this skit on TV and couldn't stop laughing when the Janitor hit the "I don't cleam, I'm not cleam... OK?" part. Even though they modified the pitch in the repetitions, this is just like the "Sometimes behaves so strangely" phenomenon.

http://www.truveo.com/Cinco-Urinal-Shower/id/3524934232

It even got made into a remix:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgDwNd1qukU

I love this show
I listen to it every week and download all the podcast
I wonder if they can send me the audio file of the high school singing
with the email I put in

The Musical Language episode was my first exposure to Radiolab and to this day remains one of my favorites. Imagine my surprise when I read this...
http://www.slate.com/id/2209818//GT1=38001

Perhaps a modern day side effect of the same mechanism that caused the Rites of Spring riots?

It is so inspiring to know that programs like Radiolab are being made and reaching an audience.

However, in Fantasia, Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" was not accompanied by mushrooms (this was The Nutcracker Suite). More appropriately, it involved the early history of the planet, spanning the origins of life to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

This link comes from a very low-brow site, but when I saw it I was reminded of this Radio Lab episode and specifically the "Sometimes behave so strangely" bit. Here, someone has made an explosion, a yelp, and then Macho Man saying "Art thou bored?" into music. The beauty of it is that it begins with simply these elements then comes in with music later. Then, just as with the Radio Lab segment, you can't hear these sounds again as simply the sounds, but as the music. Just thought I'd share!

artthoubored.ytmnd.com

Turns out speakers of tone languages are exponentially more inclined to have absolute (AKA 'perfect') pitch.

Dr. Oliver Sacks in "Musicophilia" discusses this from the anthropology perspective.

I love how the first bit relates to rap music. Great rappers are not only very aware of the inherent musicality and rhythm of language, they exploit and experiment with it.

I am amazed that Mussorgsky was not mentioned in this program: This composer believed that music should reproduce the music of the natural language. Very interesting program!

I'm interested in why the singers chose to change the last pitch of "Sometimes behave so strangely." Speaking in solfege, the notes the singers sang were La La Sol Fa La Sol Do. But if you listen to Diana's speech, the tones she uses are La La Sol Fa La Sol Si (Ti for the Sound of Music fans out there.). It makes sense, too, because having the phrase end on a leading tone keeps the listeners' ears perked for what she'll say next, and of course she does go on to finish her sentence eventually. The singers change this last note, though, presumably to make the loop have more of a feeling of finality.

The spoken word/song part of the segment reminds me of electronic/sample-based music.
Almost any dance music has songs with samples taken from films/programs/speeches where this principle is demonstrated.
Luke Vibert is a good example.
Great show!

I'm a new listener and this show just blew my mind. Excellent!

Absolutely wonderful program, as usual. For many more amazing examples of the musicality of human speech, check out the music of The Books:

http://www.thebooksmusic.com/

The song "Be Good to Them Always" is a particularly great example.

I have just discovered Radio Lab. What a great show! Thank god things like this exist.
Thank you!!
Garth~

Among the many fascinating aspects of Diana Deutch's work, the subject of music extracted from a spoken phrase came sharply to mind when I was just listening again to a work by a contemporary American composer.

Check out "Different Trains" by Steven Reich. He makes terrific use of this phenomenon.

One theory dismissed by the host is that genetic factors contribute to more Chinese having perfect pitch. Isn't it possible that tone languages themselves exist in populations that are genetically disposed to higher intelligence, which are thus able to comprehend them more effectively? And has anyone investigated whether there a significant correlation between higher innate intelligence, tone language and perfect pitch (as politically incorrect as that might be)?

Dear Radio Labs

Somehow I stumbled upon Radio Labs and have found myself listening for the past 6 hours, absolutely loving every episode. Six hours, what is wrong with me?

I have never heard such an amazing broadcast with the shear quality, enthusiasm and joy for producing radio works.

Please keep up the great work and to WNYC, please continue to fund this series. I shall become a member of the WNYC family, simply for this program.

Thanks again for the smiles and joy

Chris Rock