Research
Abstract
This project was a quantitative study of the relationship between the rhythm and melody of spoken language – specifically, German and French – and that of musical melody in 19th-century German and French art song. The study focused on the paralinguistic properties of tone and quantity in spoken French and German to determine the effect of these two properties on the analogous properties in music, pitch/F0 and length/duration, in the 19th-century art song repertory.
The project used the Humdrum Toolkit, an open source software program written by David Huron consisting of tools, commands, and representations designed to assist with music research. In addition to using the existing Humdrum analysis tools, new tools were developed especially for the study. More than 600 songs by 13 French and 6 German composers were encoded and included in the data set used in the study.
Linguists have determined that spoken French demonstrates less variability between the length of successive syllables than does spoken German; that is, the "rhythm" of spoken French sounds much more regular and even than does the "rhythm" of spoken German. The project studied observed rhythmic trends in spoken French and German, comparing the rhythm of language to musical rhythm in songs written by French and German composers who were native speakers of one of the languages.
The study used a modified version of a standard linguistic rhythmic measure called the Normalized Pairwise Variability Index, or nPVI. The modified version of the nPVI accounts for various musical issues including phrases, rests, and grace notes; this modified measure is called the pnPVI (phrase-Normalized Pairwise Variability Index). This study determined that the measured difference in pnPVI between spoken French and German was mirrored in the rhythm of French and German art songs, although the difference was not as pronounced as that for the spoken languages, and was not statistically significant based on the data set used for the study.
An notable result of the study was that the songs in the two languages exhibited diverging trends as a function of time through the 19th century. When the pnPVI for each song is plotted as a function of time, there is a clear declination trend for the average pnPVI value of French- influenced music and a slight rising trend for the average pnPVI of German-influenced music throughout the 19th century. These trends are borne out by both the plot of the overall average pnPVI for each language and by the data for the individual composers. It is unlikely that these trends are the result of changes in the spoken language over that time period; therefore there may have been stylistic changes in French and German song that caused these trends.
Individual chapters are linked below in .pdf format. Please request permission before using or citing any of the information in this document.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Models of Musical and Linguistic Structure
Chapter 3: Rhythm in Language and Music
Chapter 4: Pitch and Range in Language and Music
Chapter 5: Conclusions and Discussion
Abstract This article complements and extends these studies in three ways. First, we show how a re-examination of the metaphorical bases of the forces leads to a number of hypotheses to be tested. Second, we report an experiment that tested those hypotheses by asking listeners specifically to make judgments about the experienced "strength" of presented pattern completions. Third, we report a content analysis of the distribution of the same patterns within in Heinrich Schenker’s Five Graphic Music Analyses. Abstract This paper analyzes the classical forms Schwitters appropriated, defines the generative processes (including vowel substitution, additive and subtractive processes, dialog, and sequences) to which Schwitters subjected his themes, and studies the use of carefully controlled musical elements such as pitch (including reliance on speech intonation to determine pitch motion), dynamics, and rhythm in Schwitters’ own performances of the Ursonate. Schwitters' Ursonate, a four-movement collage of music, linguistics, and poetry, is an example of his Merz ideal. On the simplest level, it is sound poetry. On another level, it is the appropriation of classical form – in this case, a musical form – rendered virtually unrecognizable by its Merz-ing with nonsense syllables, themselves appropriated and desemanticized from their original context. In fact, Schwitters’ Ursonate may be the ultimate Merz creation: a classically-influenced sonata using thematic material from a Dada-influenced phonetic poem and borrowing procedures and compositional elements from music to develop its linguistic motives. It is itself a collage of contradictions: it is simultaneously the antithesis of all of its parts, and yet the sum of those parts is so very much more. Download the handout (.pdf format) which accompanied this talk at the West Coast Conference for Theory and Analysis in April 2002 Purchase recordings of the Ursonate: Christopher Butterfield
Recent studies concerning "musical forces" suggest that listeners of tonal music may understand, experience, and create that music (in part) through a metaphorical process that maps physical motion onto musical motion. These studies argue that musical motion is shaped by a "musical gravity", a "musical magnetism", and a "musical inertia" that are analogous to their physical counterparts. And these studies have found a variety of types of evidence (the distribution of patterns within compositions, improvisations, and analyses; the behavior of computer models of melodic expectation; and the responses of participants in psychological experiments). However, none of this evidence quantifies how the interaction of musical forces might account for listeners' judgments of the dynamic tendencies of notes within heard melodic patterns.
The inspiration for Schwitters' Ursonate (1921-32) was a public reading of phonetic poems by his contemporary and friend, Raoul Hausmann. Schwitters considered these poems as found objects, sonic fragments worthy and capable of being subjected to his Merz collage technique. He used the fragments to create musico-poetic themes; these themes are combined into traditional musical formal structures and subjected to generative processes borrowed from linguistics and music.
Download an .aiff file of Hausmann speaking his phonetic poems "fmsbw" and "OFF" (1.5 MB)
Listen to a RealPlayer stream of Schwitters' Ursonate (UbuWeb)
Another recording of the Ursonate (Frog Peak music)
See the score to the Ursonate (section headings and instructions translated into Spanish -- original in German!)
Kurt Schwitters, Wergo - #6304
