Our findings suggest that the scale and religiosity of collective action may be the most important explanatory factors for the prevalence of collective music-making, but other factors, like cultural loss and religious expertise, also play a role (see table for a summary of findings)

We look at four societies in which collective music-making is rare:
the Tsimane of lowland Bolivia,
the Ache of eastern Paraguay,
the Ayoreo of Bolivia and Paraguay,
and the Tuvans of the Russian Republic of Tyva.

New paper with @sampassmore.bsky.social and @patrickesavage.bsky.social
Looking at the prevalence of group singing in a combined sample of over 8600 audio recordings and ethnographic texts, we find that it is predominant in most societies and best predicted by social context
doi.org/10.1098/rsos...