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Musical scales are used throughout the world, but the question of how theyevolved remains open. Some suggest that scales based on the harmonic series areinherently pleasant, while others propose that scales are chosen that are easyto communicate. However, testing these theories has been hindered by thesparseness of empirical evidence. Here, we assimilate data from diverseethnomusicological sources into a cross-cultural database of scales. Wegenerate populations of scales based on multiple theories and assess theirsimilarity to empirical distributions from the database. Most scales tend toinclude intervals which are close in size to perfect fifths (``imperfectfifths''), and packing arguments explain the salient features of thedistributions. Scales are also preferred if their intervals are compressible,which may facilitate efficient communication and memory of melodies. Whilescales appear to evolve according to various selection pressures, the simplesth imperfect-fifths packing model best fits the empirical data.

Cross-cultural data shows musical scales evolved to maximise imperfect fifths