The adequacy of any of these samples is . . . subject to this test: Will another sample of a similar kind taken in the same culture produce a similar performance profile? From this point of view, I believe that the majority of our samples will hold up. Even "secret" songs generally tend to be stylistically close to the more familiar music of a culture. The truth is that, with any one culture or subculture, singing is a rather standardized kind of behavior. It must be so since a main function of song is to . . . permit groups of performers to vocalize together and their listeners to share in a common experience. Cantometrics is a study of these standardized models, which describe singing rather than songs. Therefore, it is not primarily concerned with "complete" collections and descriptions, as are most scholarly endeavors, but with locating verifiable regularities and patterns. (Lomax 2000).