Song Characteristics Research Articles

A Study of the History of Hakka Mountain Song Education Transmission Based on Inheritance Historicity

Among the folk music of China, the Hakka Mountain Folk Songs of Gannan are a unique system with a long history. Understanding the rich humanistic connotation of Hakka and its place in the spiritual life of the people is of far-reaching significance to the study of Hakka culture, Hakka language and the spiritual sentiment of Hakka people in Ganzhou; and to arouse people’s awareness of the inheritance and protection of this precious cultural heritage which is on the verge of extinction. The distinctive local characteristics and folk features are fully expressed in the Hakka Mountain Folk Songs, and the local language and customs, local customs, artistic conditions， and political and cultural life are reflected in the Hakka Mountain Folk Songs in a very realistic way. In recent years, the academic community has paid more attention to the musical characteristics of the Hakka Mountain Folk Songs in Gannan, and the research has gained certain achievements. This paper will focus on the historical origin of Hakka Mountain Folk Songs in Gannan, the spiritual characteristics of Hakka people, the language of Hakka Mountain Folk Songs, the study of the musical characteristics of mountain songs and contemporary vocal works that successfully borrow from Hakka Mountain Folk Songs in Gannan. In the last part of the article, he writes some opinions about the inheritance and innovation of Gannan Hakka Mountain Folk Songs, which will help the creators to create more and better local music works and do their part to promote the inheritance of Gannan Hakka Mountain Folk Songs.

An analysis of the aesthetic characteristics of the art song "Great River Goes East"

An analysis of the aesthetic characteristics of the art song "Great River Goes East"

Speech Signal Processing and Analysis Based on Mongolian long-tune Folk Songs

This paper mainly analyzes the speech signal of Mongolian long-tune folk songs through the method of speech acoustic analysis. From the perspective of duration, it studies the changes in the length of the passages, sentences and vocabulary of Mongolian long-tune folk songs, discusses the phonetic and acoustic characteristics of Mongolian long-tune folk songs, provides basic data for the protection and digital inheritance of oral culture, and explores the establishment of oral culture database.

The Artistic Features of Tchaikovsky's Romantic Songs-Taking the Song 'Lonely Heart' as an Example

Taking the introduction of the sixth song "Lonely Heart" in Tchaikovsky's romantic Song "Six Songs" as an example, this paper expounds the connotation and significance of the song from the aspects of song creation background, lyrics selection, music form and harmony analysis, singing analysis, piano accompaniment analysis, and probes into the artistic characteristics of Tchaikovsky's romantic song.

Reevaluation of dialect boundaries in the Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) based on citizen science data: Should we split or lump?

Dialects are a specific form of geographic variation of birdsong with relatively sharp boundaries between distinct song characteristics, which provide opportunities for focused studies of processes underlying the emergence of spatial patterns in vocalization. Several songbird species that exhibit dialects became models for such research, and for some of them large-scale datasets were assembled that included recordings provided by the public. Among them, the Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella, Emberizidae) is particularly prominent, as it has been recently a subject of dedicated citizen science projects focusing on its dialect distribution. The most successful, in terms of public participation as well as the number and density of obtained recordings, was the Dialects of Czech Yellowhammers (DCY) project, which assembled detailed data at the whole-country level. A mosaic of almost all common song variants known across Europe was observed in Czechia, but the results indicated that some of the traditionally recognized Yellowhammer dialects may not represent geographically clustered song variants, at least not in Central Europe. We quantitatively analysed variation (frequency and temporal characteristics and modulation) of the terminal song element in three dialects defined by arbitrary frequency thresholds in DCY. Multivariate analyses indicated that pooling these to two distinct groups reflects the variation in the songs, as well as their spatial distribution, better than retaining the current classification to three dialects or their finer splitting to even more categories. We provide simple measures that may be used for classification of these Yellowhammer song variants in Central Europe. However, we warn from indiscriminate transposing of results from one region to another, as that may lead to substantial biases. Future studies of birdsong variation will benefit from big data assembled by citizen scientists, but to maximise their usefulness for further dialect research, careful delineation of dialect boundaries is essential.

몽골 우젬친족(Үзэмчин ястан), 전통 혼례 노래의 특징

혼례(婚禮)는 민속 관습에 의해 확립된 주요 의식 의례 중 하나이다. 몽골의 전통 혼례는 음악 없이는 상상할 수 없으며, 과거 몽골 민족의 모든 통과의례에서는 민요가 전례되는 주요 무대였다. 몽골 민족의 혼례와 수반되는 음악에는 고유한 문화적 전통이 있다. 본 연구는 중국의 내몽골 자치구(内蒙古自治区) 실링골맹(錫林郭勒盟) 동부지역에 거주하는 우젬친족의 혼례 음악에 대한 특징을 부각시키며, 혼례에서 부르는 주요 노래 6곡을 선별하여 노랫말과 선율을 분석한 것이다. 나아가 몽골민족의 다수를 차지하는 할흐족의 노래 선율과 비교하여, 주로 할흐족의 노래 선율 은 중, 하 옥타브에서 불렸고, 우젬친족의 노래 선율은 중, 상 옥타브에서 불리는 것을 확인하였다. 몽골 할흐족와 우젬친족의 혼례 노래의 내용과 의식은 일반적으로 유사했지만, 우젬친족의 혼례 노래는 잔치 끝에 종교적인 내용을 담아서 노래를 부르는 독특한 점이 발견되었다.

Vocal creativity: analyzing students song making processes in blended learning

ABSTRACT The study aims to consider the issues of vocal creativity by analyzing students’ song-creating processes. To achieve this goal, survey methods were used. They greatly contributed to the determination of the important data. The survey demonstrated that among all styles of musical compositions, students give the greatest preference to folk and classical Chinese compositions. The results also showed that only 7% of the research participants had previously created their own musical compositions while 68% of students do not possess such a skill. These data contributed to the development of training recommendations for creating one’s own musical compositions based on the study of historical features of folk and classical Chinese songs, characteristic elements of texts and melodies, as well as to the development of improvisation skills and expressiveness formation. At the end of the training course, it was determined that the musical composition creation quality was almost identical, which was confirmed by the Student’s t-test. The study also showed that, in the musical composition creation, the poetry writing level (58%) is higher than that of music writing (42%). The results obtained are important for rising musicians who seek to get better at musical compositions.

Content and Popularity-Based Music Recommendation System

The future of many modern technologies includes machine learning and deep learning methodologies. One of the prominent applications of these technologies is the recommender system. Due to the rapid growth of the songs in digital formats, the searching and managing of songs has become a great problem. In this study, the authors developed a recommender system using popularity and rhythm content of the song. The studies compared various techniques to improve the robustness and minimal error of the system. The authors will mostly focus on content-based, popularity-based, and collaborative-based filtering algorithms and also try to combine them using a hybrid approach. The authors utilized MAE for comparing the several procedures implemented here for the recommendation. Out of all procedures used, SVD performed well with MAE of 1.60 while KNN didn't perform that well as the authors had fewer features of song with mean absolute error of 2.212. User-relied and item-relied prototypes performed the best with MAE of 0.931 and 0.629.

Classification of group-specific variations in songs within House Wren species using machine learning models

Songbirds have shown variation in vocalizations across different populations and different geographical ranges. Such variations can over time lead to divergence in song characteristics, sometimes referred to as dialects. House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) is one such widely distributed bird species that has shown variation in its song characteristics within different populations. Traditionally, such studies have been conducted using manual approaches for classification. In this work we explore the use of machine learning models that can assist in performing classification of bird songs at a conspecific level. Two machine learning techniques, the random forest and a shallow feed forward neural network, are fed with pre-computed sound features to classify vocal variation in House Wren species across different reported population groups and latitudinal areas. A randomized approach is employed to create balanced subsets of sounds from different locations for repeated classification runs in order to provide a reliable estimate of performance. It is observed that such an automated approach is able to classify variations in songs within House Wren with high accuracy. We were also able to confirm the latitudinal variation of House Wren songs reported in previous studies. Given these results, we believe, such a purely data-driven way of analyzing bird songs in general can provide useful hints to biologists on where to look for interesting patterns in order to understand the evolutionary divergence in song characteristics.

Market selection and product positioning decisions’ implications for short- and long-term performance: evidence from the US music industry

PurposeThis research paper aims to investigate detailed relationships between market selection and product positioning decisions and their associated short- and long-term product performance outcomes in the context of the music category: a cultural goods industry with high amounts of product introductions. Market selection decisions are defined by the size, competitiveness and age of market subcategories within an overall product category. Positioning decisions include where a product’s attributes are located spatially in the category (periphery versus the market center), whether a product resides within a single subcategory or spans multiple ones and what brand strategy (single versus co-branding) is used.Design/methodology/approachData are from multiple sources for the US music industry (aka product category) from 1958 to 2019 to empirically test the hypotheses: genres (rock, blues, etc.) correspond to subcategories; artists to brands; and songs to products. Regression analyses are used.FindingsA complex set of nuanced results are generated and reported, finding that key marketing decisions drive short-term new product success differently and frequently in opposing ways than long-term success. Launching into very new, well-established or very competitive markets leads to the strongest long-term success, despite less attractive short-run prospects. Positioning a product away from the market center and spanning subcategories similarly poses short-run challenges, but long-run returns. Brand collaborations have reverse effects. Short-run product success is found, overall, to be difficult to predict even with strong data inputs, which has substantial implications for how firms should manage portfolios of products in cultural goods industries. Long-run product success is considerably more predictable after short-run success is observed and accounted for.Originality/valueWhile managers and firms in cultural goods industries have long relied on intuition to manage market selection and product positioning decisions, this research tests the hypothesis that objective data inputs and empirical modeling can better predict short- and long-run success of launched products. Specific insights on which song characteristics may be associated with success are found – as are more generalizable, industry-level results. In addition, by distinguishing between short- and long-run success, a more complete picture on how key decisions holistically affect product performance emerges. Many market selection and product positioning decisions have differential impacts across these two frames of reference.

Romantic interpretative model of F. Chopin’s Piano Concertos in A. Rubinstein’s (First Concerto) and H. Czerny-Stefańska’s (Second Concerto) versions

The Romantic model of interpretation is characterized by significant influence of an interpreter on the composer’s text in those part, which is the field of performer’s responsibility, and it is an alternative to the Classical as well as the Impressionistic models proposed by some scholars. The purpose of the present research is to reveal the features of Romantic interpretational model of F. Chopin’s Piano Concertos based on examples of various performers’ versions. The article analyses the performances of F. Chopin’s Piano Concertos by two outstanding pianists of the XX century, A. Rubinstein and H. Czerny-Stefańska; it is revealed how the Romantic mode of interpretation is embodied in their sound versions of these pieces. The individual approachs of the performers to the choice of temps are studied; it is revealed how the pianists emphasise the genre genesis of the certain themes of the Concertos. The performance stiyle of H. CzernyStefańska’s is briefly outlined, since she is much lesser-known in Ukrainian musicologyic space than A. Rubinstein. At the first time the idea of three interpretative models (Romantic, Classical, Impressionistic) is applied to the musical material of F. Chopin’s piano Concertos regarded in the article. Based on analysis, the conclusion is made that the both version of Piano Concertos by F. Chopin considered in the study lean to the Romantic model of interpretation. At the same time, it is quite natural that they are not the same in their essence that can be explained both, by obvious reasons (the choice of different Concertos or gender-determined performing differences), and by individual artistic preferences of the pianists, by their unique performance styles. For instance, A. Rubinstein chooses somewhat slowed down temps in multiple passages of the Concerto, including its first movement, he emphases the song features of many themes in the cases where it is appropriate and does not contradict what was written by the composer. H. Czerny-Stefańska tends to accentuate emotionallyplayful essence of the Concerto, as she focuses her attention on different types of intonation, articulation, dynamics etc. Obviously, she does not neglect lyrical nature of the work, in several themes stressing it as a predominant genre genesis. Nevertheless, H. Czerny-Stefańska aims to break the stereotypes of “feminine performance” of F. Chopin’s music, which can be seen in tendency to “wide strokes” and creation of through line of musical development.

Evolution of global music trends: An exploratory and predictive approach based on Spotify data

Music listening choices are considered to be a factor capable of measuring people’s emotions. Thanks to the explosion of streaming music applications in recent years, it is possible to describe listening trends of the global population based on emotional features. In this paper we have analysed the most popular songs from 52 countries on Spotify through their features of danceability, positivity and intensity. This analysis allows exploring how these song features reflect mood trends along with other contextual factors that may affect the population’s listening behaviour, such as the weather or the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, we have proposed a multivariate time series model to predict the preferred type of music in those countries based on their previous music listening patterns and the contextual factors. The results show some relevant behavioural changes in these patterns due to the effect of the pandemic. Furthermore, the resulting prediction model enables forecasting the type of music listened to in three different groups of countries in the next 4 months with an error around 1%. These results may help to better understand streaming music consumption in businesses related to the music and marketing industry.

Pop populism: ethno-traditionalism beyond national borders and the populist radical right

We test the somewhat counter-intuitive expectation that support for populist radical right (PRR) parties at the national level is associated with public support for ethno-traditional cues—a frequent feature in PRR imagery and nativist discourse—abroad. We do so by leveraging a large-scale comparative dataset that covers voting patterns during the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) between 1999 and 2019. Looking at voting patterns for more than 30,000 country dyads (i.e., ESC points given by country A to country B in a given contest), we show that countries with stronger national support for PRR parties tend to vote more clearly for songs showcasing ethno-traditional cues (ethnic imagery and, in particular, the use of non-English national languages), even when accounting for cultural and regional ties and song characteristics. These results provide novel insights into the relationship between nativism, radical right populism, and perceptions of foreign ethno-traditionalism.

Asymmetric song recognition does not influence gene flow in an emergent songbird hybrid zone

Abstract Hybrid zones can be used to examine the mechanisms, like song recognition, that affect reproductive isolation and speciation. Song has mixed support as a driver of speciation; we did not find song to be associated with reproductive isolation in White-crowned Sparrow subspecies (Zonotrichia leucophrys pugetensis and Z. l. gambelii). We examined an emerging secondary contact zone in these subspecies by measuring song variation, song recognition, plumage, morphology, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Plumage and morphological characters provided evidence of hybridization in the contact zone, with some birds possessing intermediate phenotype and song characteristics, and some possessing discordant phenotype and mitochondrial haplotype. Playback experiments revealed asymmetric song recognition: male pugetensis displayed greater response to their own song than gambelii song, whereas gambelii did not discriminate significantly. If female choice operates similarly to male song discrimination, we predicted asymmetric gene flow, resulting in a greater number of hybrids with gambelii mtDNA. Contrary to our prediction, more gambelii and putative hybrids in the contact zone possessed pugetensis mtDNA haplotypes, possibly due to greater pugetensis abundance and female-biased dispersal.

Tell me what you see: An exploratory investigation of visual mental imagery evoked by music

The link between musical structure and evoked visual mental imagery (VMI), that is, seeing in the absence of a corresponding sensory stimulus, has yet to be thoroughly investigated. We explored this link by manipulating the characteristics of four pieces of music for synthesizer, guitars, and percussion (songs). Two original songs were selected on the basis of a pilot study, and two were new, specially composed to combine the musical and acoustical characteristics of the originals. A total of 135 participants were randomly assigned to one of the four groups who listened to one song each; 73% of participants reported experiencing VMI. There were similarities between participants’ descriptions of the mental imagery evoked by each song and clear differences between them. A combination of coding and content analysis produced 10 categories: Nature, Places and settings, Objects, Time, Movements and events, Color(s), Humans, Affects, Literal sound, and Film. Regardless of whether or not they had reported experiencing VMI, participants then carried out a card-sorting task in which they selected the terms they thought best described a scene or setting appropriate to the music they had heard and rated emotional dimensions. The results confirmed those of the content analysis. Taken together, participants’ ratings, descriptions of VMI, and selection of terms in the card-sorting task confirmed that new songs combining the characteristics of original songs evoke the elements of VMI associated with the latter. The findings are important for the understanding of the musical and acoustical characteristics that may influence our experiences of music, including VMI.

PENGUATAN PENDIDIKAN KARAKTER SISWA MELALUI LAGU DAERAH BUGIS ”ININNAWA SABBARAE”

This activity aims to strengthen character education by instilling the values of patience, kindness, and simplicity in students through the Bugis Ininnawa Sabbarae folk song. The strengthening of character education through bugis folk songs is thought to be relevant to the phenomenon of hyper reality life. Ininnawa sabbarae is a Bugis folk song as a local cultural heritage that is usually sung by parents for the cultivation of character in their children. The implementation method is training and introduction of Bugis folk songs through the stages of planning, implementing, observing, and evaluating. The target of this training activity is teachers and students with 20 students involved. The results of the activity showed about the presentation of the increase in students' knowledge about the characters contained in the Bugis Ininnaawa Sabbarae folk song. There was also a 60% increase in the ability of students to understand the character of patience, good character and simple character. Students experienced a 100% increase in interest in knowing their folk songs after understanding the character content in the song Ininnawa Sabbarae. Based on the answers from the results of the return after conducting training on the introduction of song character content in the Bugis area with the singing method, there was an increase in character understanding, and students felt very satisfied

The Art of Mbira: Musical Inheritance and LegacyMbira's Restless Dance: An Archive of Improvisation, Vols. 1 & 2

The Art of Mbira: Musical Inheritance and LegacyMbira's Restless Dance: An Archive of Improvisation, Vols. 1 & 2

The Artistic Characteristics of Chinese Guqin Songs

The Guqin is the oldest plucked instrument in China. As the first of the “Four Arts” of the ancient Chinese literati, the Guqin carries a great cultural significance. As the art of the Guqin has developed, two forms of art have emerged: the Guqin Music and the Guqin Songs. It is a distinct art form that arose approximately simultaneously with the Guqin and is an aesthetic representation of poetry and music. In order to uncover the Guqin Songs’ special appeal, this article will analyse their creative qualities in terms of tonality, melody, tempo, rhythm, song structure, and lyrical substance; explain the importance of historical context in the discovery, preservation, and promotion of Guqin Songs.

Acoustic Playback Stimulus Experiment to Study Mating Behavioral Responses of Bactrocera cucurbitae Coquillett (Diptera: Tephritidae)

The melon fly, Bactrocera cucurbitae is serious pest attacks fruits and vegetables. The manipulation of male mating behavior that displays acoustic signals is one of the steps in the behavior-based control strategy of B. cucurbitae. The first study period determines the courtship song characteristics, frequency, and occurrence time. The recording was carried out when B. cucurbitae was mated using recording devices at 04.00–07.00 pm. The results show three sounds produced before copulation, namely, calling, courtship, and stimulating, with frequencies 274.30 ± 3.29 Hz, 284.65 ± 2.00 Hz, and 304.36 ± 1.82 Hz. B. cucurbitae courtship song began at 04.00–06.26 pm. The second study was performed to determine the effect of experimental acoustic playback stimulus on the selection of mating pairs by females. The acoustic playback stimulus is made synthetically by playback of two channels, namely, calling and courtship sounds, with frequencies of 274 and 284 Hz at a sound pressure level (SPL) of 85 dB. The experimental results of acoustic playback stimulus show that the sexual behavior of female B. cucurbitae was disrupted and marked by the decreased number of copulations during SPL is high, resulting in the overlapping calling and courtship sounds frequencies that impair signal detection.

Development of the idea of patriotic education of students through school songs in China

Introduction. The relevance of the study is determined by the increasing need for patriotic education of young people in modern Chinese society. In this regard, vocal art, as well as the genre of school songs, in particular, have a powerful pedagogical potential. Purpose: identification of the features of the development of the idea of patriotic education of students through school songs in China (1920s to the present century). Materials and methods: the theoretical basis of the study was the works of outstanding Chinese composers and teachers of the 20th century on the role of music and song in the patriotic education of young people. The research methods included the retrospective analysis of the issues of patriotic education in China; the theoretical and comparative analysis of the approaches of Chinese scientists to the implementation of the process of patriotic education in music lessons at school. Results: The periodization of the formation of the school song genre, which laid the foundation for the idea of educating patriots through songs during school music lessons in China, is presented. The results of comparative analysis of the works of Chinese researchers have shown that the idea of patriotic education has evolved within this genre throughout the twentieth century, reflecting the main events in the history of Chinese society. The features of the school song of the first half of the twentieth century related to military themes aimed at educating defenders of the Motherland are highlighted. The characteristic of the stages of updating the themes of school songs after the formation of the PRC is given. Since 1949, school songs have been dominated by pictures of peaceful life, praising the beauty of native nature, family values, labor feat, without losing their patriotic character. Conclusion. The idea of patriotic education through school songs in China has evolutionary nature. Despite the difference in themes, all songs of this genre have patriotic orientation and contribute to the education of citizens who are sincerely devoted to their native country.