Prosodic Dissonance

Abstract

In popular and scholarly discourse on texted music and music-speech intersections, the prevailing assumption is that the linguistic features of the lyrics (e.g., syllabic stress) align with the way the lyrics are sung (e.g., phenomenal accent in or affecting the melody)—or, if not, that they should. However, not only can text and music conflict, but they do so in a variety of ways, to varying degrees, and with different effects on our listening experience. I define prosodic dissonance as any conflict between the prosodic linguistic features and musical rendition of text. This could include misalignment between syllabic and durational/registral stress, between spoken and sung phrases, or between spoken and sung intonation. Prosodic dissonance/consonance can also interact with rhyme, vowel shape, parallelism, and syncopation. To recognize prosodic dissonance, I (1) determine the prosody for the lyrics as spoken, (2) determine the prosody for the melody as sung, (3) identify mismatches as dissonances, (4) consider the effect of the surrounding melody/lyrics, (5) consider alternate pronunciations or hearings that might account for it, and (6) consider the perceptual and analytical implications. This article focuses on prosodic dissonance in popular music, with longer analyses of Kesha’s “Tonight” (2020), Royal & the Serpent’s “Overwhelmed” (2020), and Rina Sawayama’s “This Hell” (2022).