Researchable Question. Hypothesis. Purpose

Researchable Question

How does musical syntax relate to prosody and linguistic syntax at the syllable, word, and sentence level, and how does this relationship vary across tonal and non tonal languages?

Hypothesis

If different tonal languages are analyzed, musical syntax will bear relation to linguistic prosody and syntax in terms of tone, intervals, chords and structure because of the connection in how musical and linguistic syntax are processed in the brain.

Purpose

The overall aim of this project is to establish connections between language and modern music in terms of apparent tone using a program that can analyze musical and spoken audio samples from the Internet and music streaming platforms. These connections will be compared and contrasted between various tonal and non-tonal languages; trends and patterns will be looked for. An existing program will be used (likely Audacity).

Background

• Music and language have been found to be processed similarly in the brain through neuroimaging demonstrating the activation of linguistic areas when listening to music (Patel, 2003)

• Both music and language are processed in relation to distance of individual components from each other o For language: components are part of speech (noun, verb, etc.) (Patel, 2003)

o For music: components are distances between pitches (Patel, 2003 and Lerdahl, 1988) ▪ This also influences how “stable” the music is perceived to be (Lerdahl, 1988) • If elements are farther apart, it takes more energy to process them

o If farther apart, lower brain activation levels have been observed (Patel, 2003)

• Theory: Music and language are processed in the same way through different structures of the brain (Zatorre, 2012)

How are tonal and non tonal languages different? • Uses of tone in a language differ (Best, 2019)

o Change contextual meaning of a word

o Grammatical function- can indicate a plural or a question o Indicate emotion

• Contour tone languages: words mean different things when said at different pitches (Best, 2019) o Example: Cantonese

• Stress languages: do not rely on tone to change meaning (Best, 2019) o Example: English

• Pitch accent languages: kind of a bridge between the two (Ito, 2017)

o Example: Japanese (has “high” and “low” tones and stress patterns, but tones don’t specifically change meaning)

Background

• Connection is language-specific • Examples:

o Parallelism between tonal melody of musical and spoken words in Cantonese (Wong and Diehl, 2002)

o Hierarchy of connection where some types of songs have greater connection than others ▪ Nursery rhymes have greater connection to speech than pop music (Chao, 1956)

o When speech and music are tonally connected, they will sometimes align at an important connecting beat within a melody

▪ In Mandarin, syllables falling on stressed beats of a bar were found to match spoken tone (Wee, 2007)

▪ In a Hausa song, two common musical phrases were repeated throughout, and similarity between spoken and musical tone occurred at beginning of first important phrase (Richards, 1972)

▪ In three Shona songs, tonal transitions were found to be parallel between speech and song (Schellenberg, 2009)

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Procedure

Figure 1 is taken from a study of Shona songs. As you can see, the frequency of the spoken and sung melody follow the same general pattern. Transitions between syllables could either be parallel (both increasing, decreasing, or staying the same in frequency), non-opposing (one increasing or decreasing and the other remaining the same in frequency) or opposing (moving in the opposite directions in frequency). (Schellenberg, 2009).

Procedure

Figure 2 demonstrates that music and speech from tonal languages have a greater median number of slope reversals, or changes in pitch direction, than samples from non tonal languages. Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese were looked at for tonal languages, and American English, German, and French were the languages from which the non tonal samples were selected. (Han, 2012).

Procedure

• Shona, an African language commonly spoken in Zimbabwe which uses register tones, or tones that are relatively higher or lower than each other

• Hmong, an Asian language spoken throughout Southern China, Vietnam, and Laos that uses contour tones or patterns of rising and falling tones to communicate

Why did I choose these languages?

• The type of connection between music and language varies greatly across different languages

• As such, I chose languages that were different from each other to collect a variety of samples, and chose languages that weren’t studied as frequently.

What have I collected?

• I have so far collected musical samples for Shona and Hmong, the two languages which I would most like to research.

• Samples have been primarily found on YouTube, but recently, after reaching out to a professor at UMass Amherst, I have also gained access to a database with the San Diego Hmong Language Project. o Samples I found on YouTube were mostly from a certain label based in California and are more

recent whereas samples from the database are more traditional.

Procedure

• Amount of changes in pitch direction (in speech and music) • Average distance from individual syllables and notes

• Common patterns of tone in speech compared to common melodies and keys in music

• Chords falling on important rhythmic beats and relative distance within the musical piece compared to emphasized syllables or words and relative distance to the phrase

What will I be using for analysis?

• Audacity is a sound analysis computer program with powerful frequency analysis tools • Plug-ins can be imported for additional in depth analysis

o Harmonic Pitch Class Profile Vamp Plug-in is specifically utilized to find frequencies and pitches within musical samples

Conclusions (Predictions)

In a language, common contour of speaking patterns will have a relation to the perceived tone of commonly used musical chords, and this will vary across the levels of tonal and non-tonal languages; common syllable patterns will also bear a connection to rhythmic structure of music because of the connection in how music and language are processed in the brain in terms of syntax. If a connection between linguistic and musical syntax is found, stressed syllables in speech will occur in similar tonal conditions as stressed notes in music, similar musical patterns will occur in a wider rhythmic framework comparatively with stressed and unstressed syllables in a sentence, and intervals between musical chords will be similar to tonal intervals in speech because of the connection in how musical and linguistic syntax are processed in the brain.

Future Work/ Extensions

One good extension of this project would be to repeat the same process with additional languages, since the connection between music and speech is so language specific. It would be interesting to compare both languages that developed very differently and are not related as well as close families of languages to see where differences and similarities lie. Other languages that I wanted to look at if given time included Limburgish and Japanese. Additionally, changing the time period that samples are taken from could yield interesting results, since more traditional music is believed to have a higher correlation with speech. Genre of music could also be an interesting basis for data.

Timeline

• Finish downloading and installing vamp plug-ins (overcome technical difficulties) • Collect vocal samples

January 1-11

• Preliminary testing of musical samples (Shona and Hmong) o Changes in pitch direction per note

o Changes in chord direction over lines o Average distance between note pitches o Average distance between chords

o Average separation of notes/ chords which fall on important beats January 12-18

• Preliminary testing of vocal samples (Shona and Hmong) o Changes in pitch direction per syllable

o Changes in overall vocal contour over phrase o Average distance between syllable pitches o Average change in distance over phrases

o Average separation of stressed and non stressed syllables January 19-25

• Tests of statistical significance across data, compare results

February

Samples - Hmong

Sample

number Song title Artist Release date Language 1 Txiv Lub Xim Xaus Maa Vue 2016 Hmong

2 Hneev Taw Hlub Lily Vang 2018 Hmong

3 Plaam Txuj Kev Hlub Kassie Chang 2016 Hmong

4 Txoj Kev Sib Hlub David Yang 2019 Hmong

5

Nplooj Siab Tsis Qhuav

Ntshav Tee Vang 2015 Hmong

6 Txhob Xav Tias Yuav Yooj Yim Mas Lis Yaj 2017 Hmong

7 Lub Neej Tiam Tshiab

Nkauj Hmoob

Nasala 2018 Hmong

8 Vwm Rau Nraug Hmoob Maiv Thoj 2018 Hmong

9 Txias Tsis Tau Koj Tsab Mim Xyooj 2012 Hmong

Samples - Shona

Sample number Song title Artist Release date Language 1 Ndafunga Barura Innocente Mjintu 2007 Shona

2 The Spirit Lives On Chamson Boroma 2014 Shona

3 Nhengure

Stella Rambisai Chiweshe

Shiri 2009 Shona

4 Kufa kwangu/ kana ndafa Sekuru Gora 2014 Shona

5 Manginde Thomas Mapfume 1960s? Shona

6 Neria Oliver Mtukudzi 2009 Shona

7 Mbira (demo) Mhofu 2018 Shona

8 Maruva Enyika Leonard Zhakata 2011 Shona

9 Kuvba Pamakatisika Chiedza Chevatendi 2011 Shona

10 Peng Audzoke Daiton Somanje 2009 Shona

Sources of Error

Many of the possible sources of error will stem from not having a controlled enough sample. This can be potentially avoided by using university databases and ensuring samples are from the same time period and genre. When changing the language, the genre and general time period of the music sample should stay the same. Analysis can be improved by looking at change in pitch rather than specific pitches, since people tend to speak at different frequencies naturally.

References

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Best, C. T. (2019). The Diversity of Tone Languages and the Roles of Pitch Variation in Non-tone Languages: Considerations for Tone Perception Research. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00364

Chao, Y. R. (1956). Tone, intonation, singsong, recitative, tonal composition and atonal composition in

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Musical Chords and

Syntax in Relation to