Familiar Melodies Research Articles

Lexical Analysis of Japanese Children’s Songs from the Perspective of Japanese Language Education

Japanese children's songs can be a valuable resource for adult learners of the language, Firstly, the vocabulary used in children's songs is predominantly high-frequency and foundational, with a large portion falling below the N2 proficiency level. By mastering the words and phrases found in these songs, learners can expand their conversational abilities beyond the confines of traditional textbooks. Secondly, the songs offer a balanced representation of positive, negative, and neutral emotions, reflecting the emotional range and nuances of the Japanese language. This exposure to diverse emotional expressions can enrich learners' understanding of language and cultural nuances. Moreover, the study's semantic analysis reveals frequent word associations and co-occurrences, which can help learners grasp the interconnectedness of Japanese vocabulary and the cultural contexts in which words are used. Importantly, children's songs are deeply rooted in Japanese culture, indirectly exposing learners to various cultural aspects, such as the appreciation of nature, the concept of transience, and the importance of harmony and interconnectedness. This cultural immersion can foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of Japanese values and traditions. Furthermore, the familiar melodies and sing-along nature of these songs can facilitate social bonding and interpersonal connections among learners and native speakers. Engaging in shared cultural experiences, such as singing nursery rhymes together, can create a sense of community and strengthen the bond between learners and the target language culture.

Decoding predicted musical notes from omitted stimulus potentials

Electrophysiological studies have investigated predictive processing in music by examining event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by the violation of musical expectations. While several studies have reported that the predictability of stimuli can modulate the amplitude of ERPs, it is unclear how specific the representation of the expected note is. The present study addressed this issue by recording the omitted stimulus potentials (OSPs) to avoid contamination of bottom-up sensory processing with top-down predictive processing. Decoding of the omitted content was attempted using a support vector machine, which is a type of machine learning. ERP responses to the omission of four target notes (E, F, A, and C) at the same position in familiar and unfamiliar melodies were recorded from 25 participants. The results showed that the omission N1 were larger in the familiar melody condition than in the unfamiliar melody condition. The decoding accuracy of the four omitted notes was significantly higher in the familiar melody condition than in the unfamiliar melody condition. These results suggest that the OSPs contain discriminable predictive information, and the higher the predictability, the more the specific representation of the expected note is generated.

Singing Songs Facilitates L2 Pronunciation and Vocabulary Learning: A Study with Chinese Adolescent ESL Learners

The present study assesses the effect of a three-session classroom-based training program involving singing songs with familiar melodies on second-language pronunciation and vocabulary learning. Ninety-five adolescent Chinese ESL learners (M = 14.04 years) were assigned to one of two groups. Participants learned the lyrics in English of three songs whose melodies were familiar to them either by singing or reciting the lyrics, following a native English singer/instructor. Before and after training, participants performed two vocabulary tasks (picture-naming and word meaning recall tasks) and two pronunciation tasks (word and sentence oral-reading tasks). The results revealed that although both groups showed gains in vocabulary and pronunciation after training, the singing group outperformed the speech group. These findings support the value of using songs with familiar melodies to teach second languages at the early stages of learning in an ESL classroom context.

What Got You through Lockdown?

What Got You through Lockdown?

Improving auditory alarms: Reducing perceived annoyance with musical timbre (a randomized trial)

BackgroundAuditory alarms in medical environments are widely criticized due to problematic design issues affecting learnability, recognition, and annoyance. To overcome these issues, new alarm sets vary properties like pitch, timing, and timbre—the “quality” of a sound. Past work identifies timbre as a promising candidate for improving alarm recognition, however most studies manipulate multiple acoustic parameters, obfuscating the independent effect of timbre on melodic perception. MethodsTo better understand timbre's potential for improving alarm recognizability and reducing annoyance, we recruited forty-four participants for a melody recognition experiment. In a learning phase, participants learned short alarm melodies performed with either a complex musical timbre based on a xylophone or one following the specifications of a universal alarm standard. During a recall phase, participants heard the melodies again presented in either the xylophone or standard timbre and attempted to identify the corresponding label for each alarm. Afterward, participants heard alarm pairs presented in both timbres and chose which one they perceived to be more annoying. ResultsParticipants recalled xylophone alarm melodies with comparable accuracy to the standard timbre, however they found the musical timbre substantially less annoying. Regardless of the timbre at exposure, recognition of familiar melodies decreased if the timbre changed between learning and recall. ConclusionsWe compared the recognizability and annoyance of alarm melodies presented in either a standard alarm timbre or a synthesized xylophone timbre. Our findings reveal musical sounding alarms are comparably recognizable, yet significantly less annoying than alarm signals common in medical environments. These outcomes provide a promising first step to improving patient care through musically informed alarm design.

Absolute pitch judgments of familiar melodies generalize across timbre and octave.

Most listeners can determine when a familiar recording of music has been shifted in musical key by as little as one semitone (e.g., from B to C major). These findings appear to suggest that absolute pitch memory is widespread in the general population. However, the use of familiar recordings makes it unclear whether these findings genuinely reflect absolute melody-key associations for at least two reasons. First, listeners may be able to use spectral cues from the familiar instrumentation of the recordings to determine when a familiar recording has been shifted in pitch. Second, listeners may be able to rely solely on pitch height cues (e.g., relying on a feeling that an incorrect recording sounds "too high" or "too low"). Neither of these strategies would require an understanding of pitch chroma or musical key. The present experiments thus assessed whether listeners could make accurate absolute melody-key judgments when listening to novel versions of these melodies, differing from the iconic recording in timbre (Experiment 1) or timbre and octave (Experiment 2). Listeners in both experiments were able to select the correct-key version of the familiar melody at rates that were well above chance. These results fit within a growing body of research supporting the idea that most listeners, regardless of formal musical training, have robust representations of absolute pitch - based on pitch chroma - that generalize to novel listening situations. Implications for theories of auditory pitch memory are discussed.

Comparing the comprehension of short stories paired with familiar and unfamiliar melodies and spoken text in autistic children

Autistic children (AC) can demonstrate varying abilities of comprehending spoken and written information. Although information is often paired with music to facilitate recall and learning, there is limited research investigating if sung short stories influence the listening and reading comprehension (LRC) of AC. The purpose of this study was to compare the LRC of information paired with (1) familiar melodies, (2) unfamiliar melodies, and (3) spoken information in AC. Participants ( N = 59) received three different short stories presented live that were sung paired with a familiar melody, sung paired with an unfamiliar melody, and spoken. Both music conditions had guitar accompaniment. After presentation of each condition, participants answered five close-ended questions to measure LRC. There was no significant within-group LRC difference between the familiar melody, unfamiliar melody, or spoken conditions. Descriptive statistics indicated that both music conditions yielded slightly higher mean LRC scores than the spoken condition with slightly higher mean LRC during the familiar melody condition than the unfamiliar melody condition. Given the differences in the means, future researchers should be mindful of the possibility of a type II error. Implications for classroom and clinical work, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research are provided.

Song of a deaf-mute shepherd : a Czech broadside ballad between the oral and printed tradition : an interdisciplinary case study

This is a case study of a critical edition and an analysis of one song from a collection of Czech broadside ballads published in the monograph To a Familiar Melody. The following text is an example of an interdisciplinary approach to Czech broadside ballads, combining insights from ethnology, ethnomusicology, linguistics, and literary history. Methodologically, it takes its starting point in twentieth century oral tradition accounts and historical retrospectives. The historical retrospective methodology traces the reception and variation of songs, the tradition of tunes, motifs, or elements of language in different social, territorial and media settings.

Rhythm-Based and Tonal-Based Music Interventions on Upper Extremity in Parkinson's Disease: A Scoping Review

<h3>Objective(s)</h3> To compare the effects of rhythmic-based and tonal-based music interventions on upper extremity (UE) outcomes in individuals with Parkinson's Disease (PD). Rhythmic-cueing utilizes external beats to influence motor execution of rhythmic movements (e.g., walking); tonal-based interventions incorporate melody and harmony to motivate and affect movement performance. However, the majority of the PD studies exclusively focused on rhythmic cueing for gait, which is a naturally paced movement. As the upper extremity (UE) movements are more varied and may be less rhythmed (e.g., dressing, handwriting), we wonder whether different types of intervention may provide distinct benefits in UE. <h3>Data Sources</h3> Five electronic databases (Cochrane, PubMed, Medline, CINAHL, and Embase) were used, with keyword combinations of Parkinson, rhythm/music, and upper extremity. All the searches were completed in August 2021. <h3>Study Selection</h3> Two pairs of two reviewers split the potential 1560 articles from the literature search and independently reviewed the article titles and abstracts for inclusion. Forty-six English-written full-text articles were further examined by two independent reviewers from either pair, resulting in a total of 22 studies included. <h3>Data Extraction</h3> All four independent reviewers extracted the descriptive data related to the intervention, the outcome measures, and the results. <h3>Data Synthesis</h3> The four reviewers classified the studies into three groups based on the intervention type: Rhythm-Only (n=12), Music-No-Beats (n=7), and Music-With-Beats (n=4) interventions. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Regardless of the intervention types, PD participants demonstrated consistent improvements in non-functional, rhythmed tasks (e.g., finger tapping) after training. However, no studies of Rhythm-Only interventions examined UE functions (e.g., dressing). Although 4 studies of Music-No-Beats interventions assessed UE functions (e.g., eating), none showed significant improvements. Further analysis suggests that interventions using familiar melodies could be distracting and deteriorate PD patients' performance. All the Music-With-Beats studies demonstrated significant results, but only one measured and showed functional benefits (in handwriting). Overall, only limited PD studies examined UE functional outcomes. More studies are needed to understand the unique effects of each intervention type for better clinical applications in PD. <h3>Author(s) Disclosures</h3> No conflict of interest.

Music appreciation on cochlear implant simulation with contour and temporal cues

The musical appreciation of the cochlear implant simulation user on the contour and temporal cues and the effect of the coding strategy are determined. Cochlear implant simulations were processed using continuous interleaved sampling (CIS) and spectral peak (SPEAK) coding strategies with varying numbers of channels. The experiments consist of contour identification, temporal cue discrimination, and familiar melody identification. The results show cochlear implant simulation users are poor at recognizing contour cues compared with normal hearing, but good at discriminating temporal cues from tempo and rhythm varied with contour, achieving scores close to normal hearing. A poor score was observed in familiar melody identification with pitch contour, compared to normal hearing scores, which correlated (r = 0.99) with the recognition of contour cues. Temporal cue information from rhythm helped cochlear implant simulation users recognize familiar melodies with an almost 40% increase in score compared to melodies without rhythm (p 0.05). Music appreciation was poor on the variation of coding strategy with the number of channels 2 to 6 CIS and good on the SPEAK coding strategy (compared with 22 channels condition). The studies emphasize the need for advances in coding strategies to deliver pitch contour cues to cochlear implant processing.

Anitta's ‘Girl from Rio’, Digital Fatigue, and Stereotype

AbstractIn May 2021, Brazilian pop-funk superstar Anitta released ‘Girl from Rio’. The song was based on the melodic foundation of the bossa nova song ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ that became a huge international hit at the end of the 1960s bossa nova craze. ‘Girl from Rio’ features trap beats on top of the familiar melody with a clear lyrical message that critiques international stereotypes of women from Brazil. When Anitta attempted to capture the US market through TikTok and a high-profile remix, much of her critique disappeared. This article employs the concept of ‘digital fatigue’ to explore how viral musical content loses crucial aspects of its meaning through circulation and endless embodied repetition. By focusing on how the repetition of viral musical media perpetuates stereotypes, it shows how the environment for transnational success requires easy associations to spread.

Endogenous rhythms influence musicians’ and non-musicians’ interpersonal synchrony

Individuals display considerable rate differences in the spontaneous production of rhythmic behaviors (such as speech, gait, dance). Temporal precision in rhythmic behavior tends to be highest at individuals’ spontaneous production rates; musically trained partners with similar spontaneous rates show increased synchrony in joint tasks, consistent with predictions based on intrinsic frequencies of coupled oscillators. We address whether partner-specific influences of intrinsic frequencies are evidenced in musically trained and untrained individuals who tapped a familiar melody at a spontaneous (uncued) rate individually. Each individual then synchronized with a partner from the same musicianship group at an initially cued rate that matched the partners’ spontaneous rates. Musically trained partners showed greater synchrony in joint tapping than musically untrained partners. Asynchrony increased in both groups as the partners’ difference in individual spontaneous rates increased, with greater impact for musically untrained pairs. Recurrence quantification analysis confirmed that musically untrained individuals demonstrated greater determinism (less flexibility) in their tapping than musically trained individuals. Furthermore, individuals with greater determinism in solo performances demonstrated reduced synchrony in joint performances. These findings suggest that musicians’ increased temporal flexibility is associated with decreased endogenous constraints on production rate and greater interpersonal synchrony in musical tasks.

Leveraging the Pied Piper effect -The case of teaching programming to sixth-grade students via music

This paper describes a pilot study that explores students learning how to program via a multi-disciplinary approach. The study participants were eleven 6th grade students who learned programming fundamentals via music activities in a Scratch 3.0 environment. These activities included the programming of familiar melodies and the development of suitable animations or computer games. For that matter, a study unit termed MelodyCode was developed in the spirit of the STEAM education approach and the spiral learning method and included exploration tasks based on individual learning. Via the programming of familiar melodies, they became acquainted with programming concepts such as functions, variables, repetition and control commands, parallel processes, and more. Competitions that win awards were held from time to time, which prompted students to invest efforts in their projects to reach first place and gain the teacher and classmates' appreciation. The study was conducted in the form of action research. The data analysis yielded references to the effect of MelodyCode on common stereotypes students hold regarding programming (masculine profession, necessitates good mathematics knowledge), cognitive aspects (cognitive load, linking music concrete use to abstract programming concepts), and affective aspects (joyful and relaxing class atmosphere, motivation, curiosity, self-efficacy).

Familiarity modulates neural tracking of sung and spoken utterances

Music is often described in the laboratory and in the classroom as a beneficial tool for memory encoding and retention, with a particularly strong effect when words are sung to familiar compared to unfamiliar melodies. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this memory benefit, especially for benefits related to familiar music are not well understood. The current study examined whether neural tracking of the slow syllable rhythms of speech and song is modulated by melody familiarity. Participants became familiar with twelve novel melodies over four days prior to MEG testing. Neural tracking of the same utterances spoken and sung revealed greater cerebro-acoustic phase coherence for sung compared to spoken utterances, but did not show an effect of familiar melody when stimuli were grouped by their assigned (trained) familiarity. However, when participant's subjective ratings of perceived familiarity were used to group stimuli, a large effect of familiarity was observed. This effect was not specific to song, as it was observed in both sung and spoken utterances. Exploratory analyses revealed some in-session learning of unfamiliar and spoken utterances, with increased neural tracking for untrained stimuli by the end of the MEG testing session. Our results indicate that top-down factors like familiarity are strong modulators of neural tracking for music and language. Participants’ neural tracking was related to their perception of familiarity, which was likely driven by a combination of effects from repeated listening, stimulus-specific melodic simplicity, and individual differences. Beyond simply the acoustic features of music, top-down factors built into the music listening experience, like repetition and familiarity, play a large role in the way we attend to and encode information presented in a musical context.

지미 블랜튼과 레이 브라운의 즉흥연주 비교 고찰 - 곡을 중심으로 -

1930-1940s Swing jazz music, called the big band era, is a period of rhythmic development. At the same time, thezrole of the tuba in the big band has changed to double bass. Jimmy Blanton, who was the bass player in Duke Ellington's band from 1939-1931, went beyond the simple traditional method and played with various techniques, not just scales and chords. This was the beginning to change the concept of jazz bass playing style. Jimmy Blanton is the first bassist to showcase his modern jazz-based playing style. Many bassists have appeared, including Jimmy Blanton, one of whom is Ray Brown. Ray Brown was a representative bassist of the bebop era, who was influenced by Jimmy Blanton's performance and was characterized by the use of mode scales and the use of half-tones. In this paper, Jimmy Blanton and Bassist Tray Brown, who were influenced by his performance, were analyzed and compared for each word of the two performers' common performances <Pitter Panther Patter>. Throughout this paper, Jimmy Blanton's use of accurate chord tones and scales, the use of patterns, the use of preceding notes, and the dynamic performance through repeated use of rhythms and melodies, as seen in Ray Brown's improvisation. I was able to know that I was able to play. On the contrary, Ray Brown was able to discover the characteristics of playing by borrowing the familiar melody, and Ray Brown played with a minor feeling by connecting the characteristic sounds with chord tones. I understood it. The author thinks that analyzing the performances of the performers advanced through this research and continuously studying their characteristics will be of great help to the future musical development and growth.

Singing the News of Punishment

Abstract This article explores the pan-European phenomenon of the execution ballad, songs that told the news of true crimes and their punishment by public execution. Looking at examples across nine languages, from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century, this comparison reveals that these ballads share multiple features in textual content and format: a recognisable, formulaic narrative; sensationalist and emotive language; and a conservative perspective that confirms that the condemned is guilty and that ‘justice’ is being served. We also note key regional differences, such as in the use (or not) of contrafactum, the setting of new lyrics to familiar melodies, in the use of the first versus third person voice, and in the depiction of graphic violence, both of the crime committed and the execution. Ultimately, we argue for the existence of an almost universal tradition in Europe of how to sing the news of punishment.

Music Perception and Speech-in-Noise Skills of Typical Hearing and Cochlear Implant Listeners.

Purpose Adult cochlear implant (CI) users rate music as one of the most important auditory stimuli, second to speech perception. However, few studies simultaneously examine music perception and speech-in-noise perception in adult CI recipients. This study explores the effect of auditory status on music perception and speech-in-noise perception recognition in noise as well as the relationship among music engagement, music perception, and speech-in-noise perception. Method Participants include 10 adults with typical hearing (TH) and 10 adults with long-term CI use. All participants completed the Music-Related Quality of Life Questionnaire, which assesses subjective music experiences and their importance; the Pitch Direction Discrimination, Familiar Melody Recognition, and Timbre Recognition subtests of the Clinical Assessment of Music Perception for Cochlear Implants; the Unfamiliar Melody Recognition subtest of the Profile of Music Perception Skills; and the Bamford-Kowal-Bench Speech-in-Noise Test. Results The TH group significantly outperformed the CI group for speech-in-noise perception and on all four music perception tasks. The CI group exhibited not only significantly poorer mean scores but also greater variability in performance compared to the TH group. Only Familiar Melody Recognition and Unfamiliar Melody Recognition subtests significantly correlated with speech-in-noise scores. Conclusions Patients and professionals should not assume speech perception and music perception in adult CI users derive from the same auditory or cognitive foundations. The lack of significant relationships among music engagement, music perception, and speech-in-noise perception scores in adult CI users suggests this population enjoys music despite poor and variable performance in discrete music tasks.

Physiological and Behavioral Factors in Musicians' Performance Tempo.

Musicians display individual differences in their spontaneous performance rates (tempo) for simple melodies, but the factors responsible are unknown. Previous research suggests that musical tempo modulates listeners’ cardiovascular activity. We report an investigation of musicians’ melody performances measured over a 12-h day and subsequent changes in the musicians’ physiological activity. Skilled pianists completed four testing sessions in a single day as cardiac activity was recorded during an initial 5 min of baseline rest and during performances of familiar and unfamiliar melodies. Results indicated slower tempi for familiar and unfamiliar melodies at early testing times. Performance rates at 09 h were predicted by differences in participants’ alertness and musical training; these differences were not explained by sleep patterns, chronotype, or cardiac activity. Individual differences in pianists’ performance tempo were consistent across testing sessions: participants with a faster tempo at 09 h maintained a faster tempo at later testing sessions. Cardiac measures at early testing times indicated increased heart rates and more predictable cardiac dynamics during music performance than baseline rest, and during performances of unfamiliar melodies than familiar melodies. These findings provide the first evidence of cardiac dynamics that are unique to music performance contexts.

Music as a Mnemonic Device for Foreign Vocabulary Learning

This study aims to explore the relationship between music and language learning—both processed in parts of the brain within proximity of each other. It is of value to determine whether it is beneficial to incorporate music when young EFL (English as a foreign language) learners acquire new vocabulary. Utilizing three age-appropriate songs from familiar cartoon movies, the groups of students underwent different music exposures: “chanting,” “singing,” “music video without caption,” and “music video with caption.” The research attempted to determine whether music can help young EFL learners with vocabulary acquisition and if so, which pedagogical practice leads to the optimal gains. Results found in this study proved that the better acquisition of novel vocabulary in EFL learning could be achieved with the help of familiar melodies, with “chanting” and “music video with caption” methods being the most effective and lead to immediate and prolonged learning. Based on the findings, optimal music teaching methods are discussed.

Music, Language, and The N400: ERP Interference Patterns Across Cognitive Domains

Studies of the relationship of language and music have suggested these two systems may share processing resources involved in the computation/maintenance of abstract hierarchical structure (syntax). One type of evidence comes from ERP interference studies involving concurrent language/music processing showing interaction effects when both processing streams are simultaneously perturbed by violations (e.g., syntactically incorrect words paired with incongruent completion of a chord progression). Here, we employ this interference methodology to target the mechanisms supporting long term memory (LTM) access/retrieval in language and music. We used melody stimuli from previous work showing out-of-key or unexpected notes may elicit a musical analogue of language N400 effects, but only for familiar melodies, and not for unfamiliar ones. Target notes in these melodies were time-locked to visually presented target words in sentence contexts manipulating lexical/conceptual semantic congruity. Our study succeeded in eliciting expected N400 responses from each cognitive domain independently. Among several new findings we argue to be of interest, these data demonstrate that: (i) language N400 effects are delayed in onset by concurrent music processing only when melodies are familiar, and (ii) double violations with familiar melodies (but not with unfamiliar ones) yield a sub-additive N400 response. In addition: (iii) early negativities (RAN effects), which previous work has connected to musical syntax, along with the music N400, were together delayed in onset for familiar melodies relative to the timing of these effects reported in the previous music-only study using these same stimuli, and (iv) double violation cases involving unfamiliar/novel melodies also delayed the RAN effect onset. These patterns constitute the first demonstration of N400 interference effects across these domains and together contribute previously undocumented types of interactions to the available pool of findings relevant to understanding whether language and music may rely on shared underlying mechanisms.