Question

Certain aspects of music have the same effect on people even when they live in very different societies, a new study reveals.

Researchers asked 40 Mbenzele Pygmies in the Congolese rainforest to listen to short clips of music. They were asked to listen to their own music and to unfamiliar Western music.

The same 19 selections of music were also played to 40 amateur or professional musicians in Montreal. Musicians were included in the Montreal group because Mbenzele Pygmies could be considered musicians as they all sing regularly for ceremonial purposes, the study authors explained.

Both groups were asked to rate how the music made them feel using emoticons, such as happy, sad or excited faces.

There were significant differences between the two groups as to whether a specific piece of music made them feel good or bad. However, both groups had similar responses to how exciting or calming they found the different types of music.

"Our major discovery is that listeners from very different groups both responded to how exciting or calming they felt the music to be in similar ways," Hauke Egermann, of the Technical University of Berlin, said in a news release from McGill University in Montreal. Egermann conducted part of the study as a postdoctoral fellow at McGill.

The Montreal participants felt a wider range of emotions as they listened to the Western music than the Pygmies expressed when listening to either their own or Western music. This may be due to the different roles music plays in the two cultures.

"Negative emotions are felt to disturb the harmony of the forest in Pygmy culture and are therefore dangerous," Nathalie Fernando, of the University of Montreal's faculty of music, said in the news release. "If a baby is crying, the Mbenzele will sing a happy song. If the men are scared of going hunting, they will sing a happy song — in general, music is used in this culture to evacuate all negative emotions, so it is not really surprising that the Mbenzele feel that all the music they hear makes them feel good," she explained.

1.Why could Mbenzele Pygmies be regarded as musicians?

A. They are crazy about music.

B. They major in music at school.

C. They can play musical instruments well.

D. They often sing songs on ceremony.

2.The study mainly finds that ________.

A. music is universal across cultures

B. music varies among different countries

C. western music results in negative emotions

D. music makes people happy

3.The underlined word “evacuate” probably means ________.

A. set off B. benefit from C. get rid of D. account for

4.The examples mentioned in the last paragraph are to show that ________.

A. music plays different roles in the two cultures

B. music plays the same role in the two cultures

C. negative music disturbs the harmony of the forest

D. happy music is welcomed everywhere

Answer 1