Song Repertoire Research Articles

Male and female rufous‐and‐white wrens do not match song types with same‐sex rivals during simulated territorial intrusions

In birds with song repertoires, song‐type matching occurs when an individual responds to another individual's song by producing the same song type. Song‐type matching has been described in multiple bird species and a growing body of evidence suggests that song‐type matching may serve as a conventional signal of aggression, particularly in male birds in the temperate zone. Few studies have investigated song‐type matching in tropical birds or female birds, in spite of the fact that avian biodiversity is highest in the tropics, that female song is widespread in the tropics, and that female song is the ancestral state among songbirds. In this study of rufous‐and‐white wrens Thryophilus rufalbus, a resident neotropical songbird where both sexes sing, we presented territorial males and females with playback that simulated a territorial rival producing shared and unshared songs. In response, both males and females sang matched song types at levels statistically equal to levels expected by chance. Furthermore, males and females exhibited similar levels of aggression and similar vocal behaviours in response to playback of both shared and unshared songs. These results indicate that rufous‐and‐white wrens do not use song‐type matching in territorial conflicts as a conventional signal of aggression. We discuss alternative hypotheses for the function of song‐type sharing in tropical birds. In particular, we point out that shared songs may play an important role in intra‐pair communication, especially for birds where males and females combine their songs in vocal duets, and this may supersede the function of song‐type matching in some tropical birds.

The song structure and repertoire size of Daurian Redstarts (Phoenicurusauroreus) in South Korea

The song repertoire across avian species varies considerably in size, and reliable measurement is important in defining its significance as a target in sexual selection. In this study, the song structure and song repertoire size of the Daurian Redstart (Phoenicurus auroreus) in South Korea were investigated. The songs had major syllable variation rather than song type variation. The average song repertoire size from 20 males was 39.9 ± 5.8 (range: 28-50), based on a syllable type that was appropriate for this species. The songs were structured with three distinguishable parts, where song syllables varied most in the syllable part, and new syllable additions were relatively limited in the whistle and subsyllable parts. Furthermore, new syllables were gradually reduced with an increasing number of males, potentially due to the existence of core syllables in the songs. Our results suggest an individual identity cue may exist in the syllable part of the song and that the less variable whistles within and between individuals may play a role in forming a local dialect. Thus, further research on syllable similarity is needed to find song variations among individuals over greater geographic distances.

Constructing Cab Calloway

Cab Calloway was of the most popular jazz musicians of the 1930s and 1940s whose legacy today is complicated by his repertoire of novelty songs with references to minstrelsy, his residency at a segregated Harlem cabaret, the Cotton Club, and his marketing to white audiences by manager Irving Mills. Calloway’s sound and persona—commercial, racialized, theatrical—did not square with an emergent art discourse around jazz during the 1930s. Hit songs like “Minnie the Moocher” (1931), with its dark, minor sound world, exaggerated depictions of seedy Harlem nightlife, and cultivated use of local slang, catapulted Calloway to success and stardom while erasing him from a burgeoning narrative that defined jazz as an autonomous, high-art tradition. Drawing on an elaborate press manual prepared by Mills, Calloway’s reception in historical black newspapers, and musical analysis of recordings of “Minnie” and other lesser-known Calloway numbers, this article examines the music, marketing and reception of Calloway during his Cotton Club residency (1931–34, with sporadic appearances thereafter) to illuminate the contemporary valences of an important interwar performer. Rather than hearing Calloway’s music in terms dictated by jazz’s post-war art discourse, the article strives to locate his songs in their original time and place, and seeks to understand Calloway’s significance by exploring the construction of his public persona. The application of a lens of historical particularity reveals that Calloway’s “novelty” songs acted as powerful articulations of contemporary black life during a pivotal period of Harlem culture.

Polygyny is linked to accelerated birdsong evolution but not to larger song repertoires

Non-monogamous mating behaviors including polygyny or extra-pair paternity are theorized to amplify sexual selection, since some males attract multiple mates or copulate with paired females. In several well-studied songbird species, females prefer more complex songs and larger repertoires; thus, non-monogamous mating behaviors are predicted to accelerate song evolution, particularly toward increased complexity. However, studies within songbird clades have yielded mixed results, and the effect of non-monogamy on song evolution remains unclear. Here, we construct a large-scale database synthesizing mating system, extra-pair paternity, and song information and perform comparative analyses alongside songbird genetic phylogenies. Our results suggest that polygyny drives faster evolution of syllable repertoire size (measured as average number of unique syllables), but this rapid evolution does not produce larger repertoires in polygynous species. Instead, both large and small syllable repertoires quickly evolve toward moderate sizes in polygynous lineages. Contrary to expectation, high rates of extra-pair paternity coincide with smaller repertoires.

SOSIALISASI DAN INTERNALISASI DALAM PEMBELAJARAN DRUM ANAK-ANAK (Studi Kasus Pengajaran Drum di Lembaga Kursus Musik West Brothers)

ABSTRACT This paper begins with an interest in seeing the musical abilities of children learners of non-formal institutions of West Brothers music course in playing the drum, where the children show "maturity" in the musical. The level of difficulty, the selection of song repertoire, and the stage action presented by the children tends to resemble drum players of adolescence and adulthood. This raises a question about socialization and internalization in learning. West Brothers as an educational institution becomes a place of transmission of knowledge, skills, and values from? educators to learners. In the process of transmission, there is socialization and internalization through social interaction in drum learning activities. This research aims to know how the form of socialization and internalization in the drum learning process in West Brothers, especially in children learners, and how the process of socialization and internalization that form behavior patterns manifest in the musical ability of children playing drum musical instruments. This paper reveals that child behavior patterns embodied in the ability and taste of musical drumming are influenced and shaped through the process of interaction between learners and teachers in the West Brothers environment, including socialization and internalization. Kata kunci : sosialisasi dan internalisasi, west brothers, kursus drum solo

Striking a Chord

There is much that is lost with dementia. It has been established that whereas some other cognitive functions may be impaired, ‘procedural memory’—'implicit musical memory’—associated with singing, can remain intact even in the advanced stages of dementia. This joint piece focuses on how we can activate what remains through song, to strike a chord, both musically and as a way of keeping in touch with our intimate, core, primary relationships in life. We underline song as a modality of connection, even as we live with the changing constellations of cognitive impairment. Song is not only seen as narrative but also a carrier and a repository of memories; when lyrics of a song are remembered, autobiographical events are recalled for a while. Words or wordlessness are located within a wider bodily assemblage of performativity. Gestures, movements, objects, sounds and settings define the repertoire of song. We contribute to the field of critical dementia studies and music, both from a transnational diasporic perspective, as well as from the intimate zones of being carer-researcher daughters, searching for ways to connect with our parents as they live with dementia. This article considers the relation between song and dementia as inter-generational encounters of exchange and contact within the context of diasporic and transnational familial relations of care.

Дитячий пісенний репертуар: аналіз і вивчення на уроках музичного мистецтва

У статті розглядаються проблема пісенного репертуару для молодших школярів у межах вивчення предмета «Мистецтво» у загальноосвітній школі. Аналізуються текстова й музична складові пісень для учнів початкової школи, запропонованих сучасними українськими авторами та використаних у підручниках «Мистецтво» (на прикладі підручників для 1-х класів). Виокремлюються тенденції пісенного репертуару сучасних українських авторів для дитячої аудиторії та особливості їх виконання під «живий» супровід і фонограму. Висвітлюються позитивні та негативні сторони застосування фонограм у музичному навчанні молодших школярів, наводяться методичні поради.

Always Been a Rambler: G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, Country Music Pioneers of Southern Appalachia by Josh Beckworth

Reviewed by: Always Been a Rambler: G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, Country Music Pioneers of Southern Appalachia by Josh Beckworth Ron Pen Always Been a Rambler: G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, Country Music Pioneers of Southern Appalachia. By Josh Beckworth. Contributions to Southern Appalachian Studies. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2018. Pp. x, 226. Paper, $25.00, ISBN 978-1-4766-6729-4.) My academic tenure has been guided by two beliefs: scholarship grounded in a personal connection to the subject yields the most passion and perspective; and [End Page 943] music that springs directly from the soil closest at hand has the greatest power to affect us. Josh Beckworth’s Always Been a Rambler: G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, Country Music Pioneers of Southern Appalachia hews to both of these principles, revealing insight informed by a personal subjective relationship tempered through objective research. With family connections in Crumpler, North Carolina, the author is intimately invested in the people and place of his investigation: William Henry Whitter, half of the celebrated hillbilly recording duo Grayson and Whitter, also resided in Crumpler. Consequently, Beckworth’s narrative sparkles with the immediacy of family interviews and is enlivened by original photographs, many of which were first published in this book. A striking example of Beckworth’s methodology is revealed in the chapter devoted to the sprightly fiddle tune “Nancy Blevins,” which was transmitted by the White Top, Virginia, musician Albert Hash, who played with Whitter. Beckworth doggedly searches for the tune’s origin through convoluted genealogies and eventually traces the music back to the colorful Nancy Baker, née Blevins, who smoked a clay pipe, was associated with witchcraft, and, in a twist of fate, was also the grandmother of Whitter’s fourth wife. The accompanying portrait and gravesite images of “Nannie” Blevins animate this history of the tune with vivid associations despite the intervening century and a half since it was created by the adolescent girl shortly after the Civil War. While the careers of pioneering country musicians Gilliam Banmon Grayson and Whitter were created nationally through commercial recordings made between 1927 and 1929, their lives and music were bound to the soil closest to hand in their southern Appalachia communities. Grayson’s life was rooted firmly in Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee, at the nexus of Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, while Whitter’s early life and career were circumscribed by the textile mill town of Fries, Virginia, perched on the New River. The partnership of these two musicians embodied the union of their respective cultural geographies. Grayson’s traditional mountain music felicitously married into Whitter’s entrepreneurial drive and the diversity of cultural influences nurtured by migrant labor lured to the company town. Country music could never have arisen without such urban society. Beckworth’s narrative of country music’s origins proceeds through his biographies of Whitter and Grayson and their associated historical and cultural contexts. Always Been a Rambler is very much a music history that devotes equal measure to the music and the history, fully examining the ways one informs the other. The author navigates this challenging balancing act by conceiving his book as two large divisions of collected essays designed to be read either independently or sequentially as a single narrative. Historians will profit from the personal details that contribute nuance to an overview of Appalachian regional history from the Civil War through industrialization in the early 1920s. Musicians will gain perspective on song repertoire and transmission, as well as the origins of hillbilly music. Beckworth’s installment in the Contributions to Southern Appalachian Studies series successfully illuminates and confirms the seminal role of Grayson and Whitter as original voices in one of the nation’s most enduring musical expressions. [End Page 944] Ron Pen University of Kentucky Copyright © 2019 The Southern Historical Association

BACHELOR’S MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS AS A AS PREVIOUS SCHOOL SONGS COLLECTIONS THE LAST THIRD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Relevance of the study. Prerequisites for the emergence of the practice of printing special school singers (60-ies of the XIX - the first third of the twentieth century) in Ukrainian scientific thought have been little studied. Today there is no music-bibliographic information base on these publications, analysis of their repertoires, no creation of song lyrics. Only a small number of these singers have been partially investigated so far. Before the first printed singers appeared, the primary function of codifying song lyrics was performed by private handwritten singers who composed in the 18th and first half of the 19th century. Most of them have not been investigated either. The subject of the study is to draw attention to the manuscript singers of the 18th – mid 19th centuries. which were concluded and transcribed by bachelors (students) and regarded as having become the prototype of the first printed school singers in the second half of the nineteenth century. The main focus is on the unique Galician-Volyn manuscript singer (compendium), which included parts of various baccalaureate collections created for the period 1759–1821. The manuscript is kept in the Ivan Franko Archive (Institute of Literature of Ukraine. No. 4791). Methodology of the study. The basis of the study consists of: the method of historical reconstruction, applies the historical review analysis and synthesis are applied. Scientific novelty. The article analyzes a unique handwritten school singer from 1759 to 1821. Among the scribes and owners of some parts of the collection, as evidenced by marginalia, were bachelors from the cities and villages of Galicia and Volhynia was presented to Ivan Franko by a well-known Enlightenment figure in Galicia, Bohdar (Bohdan) Kyrchiv. circulation of important marginal records of the collection, evaluation of the singer’s content, analysis of individual song texts, etc. The overwhelming majority of analytical material was introduced before the scientific circulation, and some secular texts were first considered by Ivan Franko. Conclusions. The source analysis of the handwritten singer, which included fragments of several manuscript collections of 1759 – 1821, allows marginal records to confirm: during the XVIII - the first half of the nineteenth century. The prerequisites for the appearance of the first printed school singers were gradually formed. This is evidenced by the song repertoire of the collections, partly by their structure, the need and the interest of bachelors in creating handwritten singers for their own needs. It is remarkable that this evolutionary path from the manuscript to the print edition has passed through the centuries Ukrainian literary writers, collectors of spiritual songs, the first printed singers with texts of secular (folk). In the second half of the nineteenth century. the need for the creation of printed school singers, whose genesis has been documented since the beginning of the eighteenth century, has finally matured.

Mariazell in Printed Media of the 18th and 19th Centuries

In the wide range of printed books on religious topics, a specific role was played by printed pilgrimage items, whose main aim was to increase the prestige and fame of pilgrimage sites and to strengthen the promotion of worshipped cults among believers. This was also the case of the pilgrimage site of Mariazell in Styria, Austria, where believers from virtually all parts of the Habsburg Monarchy, thus also pilgrims from the Czech lands, travelled in the 18th and 19th centuries. Especially broadside-ballad production and pilgrimage books significantly developed the tradition of religious pilgrimages. Pilgrimage songs, which were published in pilgrimage books intended for pilgrims heading to Mariazell, found a response in broadside-ballad production and in many cases also became part of the song repertoire of pilgrim cults in the Czech lands.

Musical and educative aspects of various forms of children’s folk song and play

The author discusses the issues connected with children’s singing in the context of a folk song and of singing in general. She shows an analogy between a native song and mother tongue, indicating shared ‘steps’ that give a chance to express oneself through speech and song in a natural and universal manner. She also draws our attention to the link between a folk song and a life of particular communities, their culture and the world of nature. The author places children’s songs within an exceptionally colorful and varied repertoire of folk songs. Characteristic features of songs, such as a simple form, elementary melo-rhythmic phrases, narrow vocal range, texts about familiar matters, determine their value, enable children to learn them quickly and play a very important instructive-educative role.

Male New Zealand robin (Petroica longipes) song repertoire size does not correlate with cognitive performance in the wild

Songbirds (Oscines) possess specialized brain regions responsible for the learning and production of their elaborate vocalizations. It has previously been suggested that song may provide a useful indicator of individual cognitive ability, due to its underlying neurobiology, individual variability, and links to developmental health. To date the relationship between song repertoire and cognitive performance has been most extensively examined in wild song sparrows (Melospiza melodia). Two initial studies found that song repertoire size was negatively correlated with spatial memory performance, but positively correlated with inhibitory control performance in a detour reaching task. However, a recent attempt to replicate this research found opposing patterns of association between each of these cognitive measures and song repertoire. It has been suggested that we may gain further insight into the relationship between song learning and other cognitive abilities by investigating species with different ecology to song sparrows, namely caching species. Here we re-examine the relationship between song repertoire size, spatial memory and detour reaching performance in a caching songbird, the toutouwai, or North Island robin (Petroica longipes). We tested both male and female toutouwai in a detour reaching task and a spatial memory task, while also recording the individual song repertoire size for 21 of the males tested. All experiments were carried out in the wild on individuals' territories. We found no associations between song repertoire and performance in either cognitive task, or between the two cognitive task performances. Our results provide further evidence that song repertoire is unlikely to be a useful signal of individual spatial memory and inhibitory control ability in songbirds.

Lagu Anak Sebagai Repertoar Alternatif Pembelajaran Gitar Klasik Pada Anak Usia Sekolah Dasar

In general, the process of teaching classical guitar instruments in children still refer to the standard books that are sold in the market. In practice, children sometimes feel difficult in terms of mastery of the song both in terms of techniques and how to bring the song that causes them lazy or even not routine to practice. One strategy that is considered very telling is to use the repertoire of Indonesian children's songs. This strategy as one way to attract children in order to improve the skills of classical guitar playing. Emotionally, they (children) are certainly no stranger to children's songs. Thus, children will find it easier in the process of learning the classical guitar because it is so familiar to their ears compared to the classical songs in general that not necessarily all the children have heard it. Of course the child's song material as a learning material has been packaged into the classical guitar game.

Could prenatal sound discrimination predict vocal complexity later in life?

BackgroundGreater complexity of the learned vocal repertoire has been shown to increase mating and territory defence success in songbirds. Vocal learning in some songbird species begins in the egg and these songbird embryos can discriminate the sounds of different birds. Here, we test if prenatal sound discrimination positively correlates with song complexity in the Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus). We use a habituation/dishabituation approach in natural and cross-fostered nests to measure prenatal sound discrimination of female vocalisations and later quantify observed song repertoire in fledgling sons and daughters.ResultsSuperb Fairy-wren fledglings produced learned songs consisting of 6–11 different elements by 12 weeks of age. Using multiple regression analysis, both prenatal sound discrimination strength and parental song complexity (total number of vocal elements) positively correlated with a fledgling’s song complexity. The number of parental vocal elements was unrelated to the embryos’ sound discrimination score.ConclusionsPrenatal sound discrimination strength was positively related to vocal complexity later in life. From previous research, we know that individuals with greater learned vocal complexity may have higher fitness. Therefore, characterizing the causes of prenatal sound discrimination can inform our understanding of fitness trajectories when phenotypes are shaped by learned cross-generational experience. Future research should explore causes of variance in prenatal sound discrimination.

MUSIC AND SUSTAINABILITY: ŠKOFJA LOKA, A PASSION PLAY IN AN INTERRELIGIOUS CONTEXT

The rudimentary beginnings of the Škofja Loka Passion Play (ŠLPP) can be found in Slovene Lenten songs. Each year’s procession of the ŠLPP, was seen on Good Friday or at the end of the time of fasting within the frame of the church calendar. The repertoire of Slovene folk and art songs is very rich, therefore it is not strange that the author, Father Romuald Štandreški,, a Capuchin, (1715–1721) was to be the author of the ŠLPP who would be familiar to the Slovene folk songs.

Male competition drives song divergence along an ecological gradient in an avian ring species.

Sexual selection operates via female choice and male competition, which can act independently, in concert, or in opposition. Female choice is typically considered the stronger selective force, but how these two processes interact to shape phenotypic divergence is poorly understood. I tested the hypothesis that variation in sexual selection in different habitats drives song divergence in the greenish warbler ring species. I evaluated the strength, direction, and targets of female choice and male competition in three populations spanning 2400km of latitude. Average song length increased with latitude, concomitant with a decline in population density. Within populations, males sang longer songs when females were fertile and shorter songs during territory establishment. Females consistently preferred males with longer songs and larger song repertoires. By contrast, playback experiments showed that males used short songs in territory defense. Songs were shortest at high densities, and in the highest density population only, song traits preferred by females correlated with male territoriality. Stronger male competition at high population densities likely constrains maximum song length, whereas weaker competition at low densities allows expression of female choice for long songs. Interactions between male competition and ecology may be a crucial but oft-overlooked component of phenotypic divergence and speciation.

Acknowledgment of Country: Intersecting Australian Pentecostalisms Reembeding Spirit in Place

This article builds upon a previous application of Nimi Wariboko’s “Charismatic City” proposal, adapting it to the Australian context. Within this metaphor, the Pentecostal worshipper is situated in a rhizomatic network that flows with particular energies, forming a new spirit-ed common space that serves as the basis of global civil society. In this network, the culturally dominant metropolis and the culturally alternative heteropolis speak in distinct voices or tongues: An act that identifies and attunes participants to the Spirit’s existing work in the world. Here, two interweaving Australian Pentecostalisms are presented. The metropolis in this example is Hillsong Church, well known for its song repertoire and international conferences. In contrast, the heteropolis is a diverse group led by Aboriginal Australian pastors Will and Sandra Dumas from Ganggalah Church. In 2017, Hillsong Conference incorporated a Christianised version of an “Acknowledgement to Country,” a traditional Indigenous ceremonial welcome, into its public liturgy, which is arguably evidence of speaking new languages. In this case, it also serves a political purpose, to recognise Aboriginal Pentecostals within a new commons. This interaction shows how Joel Robbin’s Pentecostal “impulses” of “globalization,” “cultural fragmentation” and “world-making” can operate simultaneously within the ritual life of national churches.

Out of the Depths: Complexity, Subjectivity and Materiality in the Earliest Accounts of Holocaust Song-Making

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on two collections of immediate post-Holocaust Yiddish songs: Mima’amakim: folkslider fun lagers un getos in poyln, compiled by Yehuda Eismann in Bucharest in April/May 1945, a copy of which recently appeared in a private collection in Sydney, Australia and song session recordings made by Dr. David Boder in displaced persons (DP) camps in 1946, archived in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Library of Congress. Mima’amakim is a tiny pamphlet containing twelve compositions that would become part of the continuing repertoire of Holocaust songs, alongside eight compositions that disappeared from all other written accounts. Boder's preserved song sessions with Yiddish speakers occurred at displaced persons homes in France, Switzerland and Italy. Both items accompany some of the earliest recorded testimony of Holocaust survivors. The song-spools and the song book are extraordinarily fragile objects, containing material that opens conversations on the place of music inside and outside testimony. Their place at the margin of our understanding of musical experience in the Holocaust prompts the question: how does the affordance of material objects inform our understanding of the construction of repertories, determining exclusion and inclusion of one song over another?

Singing behaviour of the oriental magpie robin (Copsychus saularis)

The oriental magpie robin (Copsychus saularis) (OMR) is a well-known tropical songbird in which males deliver two categories of songs, namely discrete song and continuous song. Discrete songs are delivered throughout the breeding season during different times of the day, while continuous songs are delivered occasionally during courtship behaviour, intruder male rivalry and female attraction. In this study, singing behaviour, song repertoire size and yearly variations in the presentation of the repertoire of discrete songs of the OMR were studied in a colour ringed population in urban habitat of Haridwar (29°55′N, 78°08′E), Uttarakhand, India. Song bout length varied from few minutes to about an hour. Song type length ranged from 0.8 to 2.8 s with a mean value of 1.67 ± 2.42 s. Length of pause between song types averaged 3.17 ± 0.76 s. Average number and types of elements in a song type were found to be 6.15 ± 2.6 and 4.95 ± 1.36 respectively. The average minimum and maximum frequencies of song types were found to be 2.4 ± 0.6 and 5.8 ± 0.8 kHz, respectively. A large repertoire of 20–82 song types with an average of 42.59 ± 13.05 song types per individual in 09 males of OMR was observed during 2011–2013. When the total number of distinct song types against the total songs observed in an individual was plotted, the cumulative curve showed a continuous progression which did not reach an asymptote. Song repertoires varied across the years largely due to addition and/or deletion of the song types in the successive years, indicating that the OMR could be regarded as an open ended song learner.

New Light on the Mid‐Fourteenth‐Century Chace: Canons Hidden in the Tournai Manuscript

ABSTRACTThe recent discovery of two canons in the manuscript containing the famous Tournai Mass changes the history of canonic genres. This article situates the new Tournai canons within the surviving mid‐fourteenth‐century canonic repertoire from Francophone regions of Europe, especially canonic chaces in the Ivrea manuscript and the works of Machaut. To achieve this, we examine current theories of canonic techniques before setting out our own analytical framework. In a departure from the dominant view informed by the use of color and talea in tenors of the fourteenth‐century isorhythmic motet, we propose instead that the solus tenor can in part inform a better understanding of early strategies for planning and composing canons. Alternatively, some canons can be better appreciated from the basis of a ‘top‐down’ compositional approach found principally in the song repertoire of the mid fourteenth‐century ars nova. Within this analytical framework, shared principles of isoperiodicity, voice exchange, melodic permutation and melodic design across the mid‐fourteenth century French repertoire point to a common stock of techniques for composing canons. The Tournai canons provide early witnesses to these techniques, although they avoid more exuberant stylistic elements such as hocket.