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SUMMARY:Two problems in the analysis of tone-melody matching in tone langu
 age singing - Professor Bob Ladd (University of Edinburgh)
DTSTART:20200121T170000Z
DTEND:20200121T180000Z
UID:TALK137686@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Xi Zhang
DESCRIPTION:It is now accepted that song traditions in many Asian and Afri
 can tone languages aim for some correspondence between the musical melody 
 and the intrinsic melody of a sequence of spoken syllables.  An important 
 feature of this correspondence involves the pitch direction between pairs 
 of syllables in sequence: for example\, a syllable sequence L-H is best su
 ng to a rising musical melody.  However\, many problems remain\; I will di
 scuss two\, primarily on the basis of new data from studies of popular son
 gs in three Chinese varieties.\n\n(1) The pitch direction principle applie
 s easily to level tones\, but not to contour tones.  So far the only reaso
 nably secure generalisation is that in Cantonese pop songs\, the end pitch
  of a contour tone is what determines how the tone is matched to music (Ch
 an 1987).  But it seems clear that this does not apply in all languages\, 
 and our data suggest that contour tones may actually be avoided to some ex
 tent in song texts. \n\n(2) The status of sequences of two identical music
 al notes is ambiguous. Given a sequence of two different tones (e.g. H-L)\
 , a level (identical-note) sequence is often analysed as neither a match n
 or a mismatch\, but something intermediate or neutral (‘non-opposing’\
 , Schellenberg 2009\; ‘non-parallel’\, McPherson & Ryan 2018\; ‘obli
 que’\, Ladd & Kirby in press). However\, given a sequence of two identic
 al tones (e.g. H-H)\, an identical-note sequence is a match\, and mismatch
  appears undefined.  Our data show that in Cantonese\, level sequences are
  not neutral\, but are preferentially matched to sequences of identical no
 n-high tones.\n
LOCATION:Lecture Room 1\, Faculty of Music (11 West Road\, Cambridge\, CB3
  9DP)
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