Is there such a thing as a musical world language? To answer that question, Leipzig biologist Dr. Thomas Fritz from the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences traveled to a remote mountain region of northern Cameroon. There, he met the Mafa tribe, who with no access to radio, MTV or Youtube, have never heard Western music.That's an important condition for his experiment, because if the Mafa can recognize the emotional expression of happiness, fear or sadness from music he brings with him from the West, he would prove that musical understanding is innate and universal.
