Vowels mimic music
Ed Yong (Why music sounds right - the hidden tones in our own speech):
When people say the 'o' sound in rod, the ratio between the first two formants corresponds to a major sixth - the interval between C and A. When they say the 'oo' sound in booed, the ratio matches a major third - the gap between C and E. [Deborah] Ross found that every two in three vowel sounds contain a hidden musical interval.
Her results didn't just apply to English either. Ross repeated her experiments with people who spoke Mandarin, a vastly different language where speakers use four different tones to change the meaning of each word.
Even so, Ross still found musical intervals within the formant ratios of Mandarin vowels. The distribution of the ratios was even similar - in both languages, an octave gap was most common, while minor sixth was fairly uncommon.
Ross believes that these hidden intervals could explain many musical curiosities. For example, the musical preferences of a certain culture could reflect the formants most commonly used in its language.
...
Ross found that the 70% of the chromatic intervals in her data were included in the diatonic scale, and 80% were found in the pentatonic one. She reckons that these scales are so widely used because they reflect the most common formant combinations in our speech.
When people say the 'o' sound in rod, the ratio between the first two formants corresponds to a major sixth - the interval between C and A. When they say the 'oo' sound in booed, the ratio matches a major third - the gap between C and E. [Deborah] Ross found that every two in three vowel sounds contain a hidden musical interval.
Her results didn't just apply to English either. Ross repeated her experiments with people who spoke Mandarin, a vastly different language where speakers use four different tones to change the meaning of each word.
Even so, Ross still found musical intervals within the formant ratios of Mandarin vowels. The distribution of the ratios was even similar - in both languages, an octave gap was most common, while minor sixth was fairly uncommon.
Ross believes that these hidden intervals could explain many musical curiosities. For example, the musical preferences of a certain culture could reflect the formants most commonly used in its language.
...
Ross found that the 70% of the chromatic intervals in her data were included in the diatonic scale, and 80% were found in the pentatonic one. She reckons that these scales are so widely used because they reflect the most common formant combinations in our speech.