When babies learn to talk or birds learn to sing, the same principle applies: listen and then imitate. This is how the first babble becomes the first word or vocalization. Male zebra finch chicks ...

A song's melody can also help to segment a text into meaningful chunks. This allows us to essentially remember longer segments of information than if we had to memorize every single word individually.

My husband is a songwriter whose song “Sparrow” starts out like this: Though walls are separating / My body from the rain, I hear a lonesome sparrow / Perched on the weathervane. And while the sun is ...