Vocal Melodies Research Articles

The Billboard Melodic Music Dataset (BiMMuDa)

We introduce the Billboard Melodic Music Dataset (BiMMuDa), which contains the lead vocal melodies of the top five songs of each year from 1950 to 2022 according to the Billboard year-end singles charts. In this article, the dataset’s compilation process and attributes are described in detail. The melody from each of the 371 songs was transcribed manually in full to create 371 MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) files, and then melodies from the songs’ different sections (e.g., verses, choruses) were exported into separate files to create an additional 1,133 MIDI files of shorter melodies. Lyrics to the songs are provided separately from the melodic transcriptions. This report includes comprehensive descriptions and graphical representations of the available metadata per song and per melody. Analysis of verse and chorus melodies revealed structural differences between them: chorus melodies have significantly fewer notes and lower note density, but larger melodic intervals on average. Whether added to existing datasets or used as a complete dataset, BiMMuDa can serve as ground truth data for a variety of MIR tasks as well as provide insight into the study of Western pop melody.

Newborn's neural representation of instrumental and vocal music as revealed by fMRI: A dynamic effective brain connectivity study.

Music is ubiquitous, both in its instrumental and vocal forms. While speech perception at birth has been at the core of an extensive corpus of research, the origins of the ability to discriminate instrumental or vocal melodies is still not well investigated. In previous studies comparing vocal and musical perception, the vocal stimuli were mainly related to speaking, including language, and not to the non-language singing voice. In the present study, to better compare a melodic instrumental line with the voice, we used singing as a comparison stimulus, to reduce the dissimilarities between the two stimuli as much as possible, separating language perception from vocal musical perception. In the present study, 45 newborns were scanned, 10 full-term born infants and 35 preterm infants at term-equivalent age (mean gestational age at test = 40.17 weeks, SD = 0.44) using functional magnetic resonance imaging while listening to five melodies played by a musical instrument (flute) or sung by a female voice. To examine the dynamic task-based effective connectivity, we employed a psychophysiological interaction of co-activation patterns (PPI-CAPs) analysis, using the auditory cortices as seed region, to investigate moment-to-moment changes in task-driven modulation of cortical activity during an fMRI task. Our findings reveal condition-specific, dynamically occurring patterns of co-activation (PPI-CAPs). During the vocal condition, the auditory cortex co-activates with the sensorimotor and salience networks, while during the instrumental condition, it co-activates with the visual cortex and the superior frontal cortex. Our results show that the vocal stimulus elicits sensorimotor aspects of the auditory perception and is processed as a more salient stimulus while the instrumental condition activated higher-order cognitive and visuo-spatial networks. Common neural signatures for both auditory stimuli were found in the precuneus and posterior cingulate gyrus. Finally, this study adds knowledge on the dynamic brain connectivity underlying the newborns capability of early and specialized auditory processing, highlighting the relevance of dynamic approaches to study brain function in newborn populations.

The Vocal Advantage in Memory for Melodies is Based on Contour

Recognition memory is better for vocal melodies than instrumental melodies. Here we examine whether this vocal advantage extends to recall. Thirty-one violinists learned four melodies (28 notes, 16 s), two produced by voice and two by violin. Their task was to listen to each melody and then immediately sing (for vocal stimuli) or play back on violin (for violin stimuli) the melody. Recall of the melody was tested in ten consecutive trials. After a brief delay (∼10 min), participants were asked to perform the four melodies from memory. Each performance was scored based on the accuracy of two measures: (1) intervals and (2) contour. The results revealed an advantage for vocal over violin melodies in immediate recall of the melodic contour and, after the delay, a reverse pattern with an advantage for violin over vocal melodies. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the voice facilitates learning of melodies and further show that the vocal advantage in recall is short-lived and based on contour.

Research on character tone trend clustering of Kunqu Opera based on quantum adaptive genetic algorithm

Abstract Kunqu, one of the oldest forms of Chinese opera, features a unique artistic expression arising from the interplay between vocal melody and the tonal quality of its lyrics. Identifying Kunqu’s character tone trend (vocal melodies derived from tonal quality of the lyrics) is critical to understanding and preserving this art form. Traditional research methods, which rely on qualitative descriptions by musicologists, have often been debated due to their subjective nature. In this study, we present a novel approach to analyze the character tone trend in Kunqu by employing computer modeling machine learning techniques. By extracting the character tone trend of Kunqu using computational modeling methods and employing machine learning techniques to apply cluster analysis on Kunqu’s character tone melody, our model uncovers musical structural patterns between singing and speech, validating and refining the qualitative findings of musicologists. Furthermore, our model can automatically assess whether a piece adheres to the rhythmic norms of ‘the integration of literature and music’ in Kunqu, thus contributing to the digitization, creation, and preservation of this important cultural heritage.

ТИПОЛОГІЯ ВЕСІЛЬНИХ НАСПІВІВ СЕЛА ОСТРІВ ДУБЕНСЬКОГО РАЙОНУ РІВНЕНСЬКОЇ ОБЛАСТІ

The article offers studying of the wedding music culture in the village Ostriv of Central Volhyn. The main wedding rites are characterised retrospectively. The music repertoire consists of 112 vocal melodies, recorded by the author from old singers’ individual performance in non-rituals conditions and during the real wedding action. The methodological work of Lviv ethnomusicologist Bohdan Lukanyuk „Melotypol- ogy ladkankas and songs (based on West Polissya and West Volhyn)” are used for de- termining of melotypology of the songs. It was defined the main types are ladkankas, songs and pryspivkas. Keywords: Central Volhyn, Dubno region, Ostriv, vocal folklore, wedding cycle, melotypology.

The evolution of syncopation in twentieth-century American popular music

Several studies have found increases in syncopation within genres of twentieth-century popular music, but its evolution across the entire century has not been explored. In this study we use a new corpus of vocal melodies to examine trends in the use of syncopation. We find an increasing trend over the entire century. We also consider three ways of categorising syncopations into ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ forms, and find that the strong forms increase more rapidly and later in the century than the weak forms. We consider the implications of these trends and discuss further issues that are illuminated by our corpus.

GENRE AND STYLE SPECIALIZATION OF SOLO SINGING IN M. V. LYSENKO'S MUSICAL WORKS

The aim of the research is to reveal the factors and regularities of genre and style specialization of M. V. Lysenko’s chamber vocal pieces of. The methodological basis of the paper is the theoretical principles of analytical methods of working with vocal pieces as a group of genres of vocal music in its inherent immanent nature: it is a synthetic formation (synthesis of the Word and the Music), where verbal text and certain principles of its musicalisation (generalization, detailed elaboration or their combination) are of primary importance. Hence, all the structural components of solo singing (vocal melodies, instrumental part) should be considered in terms of musical embodiment of the poetic original (architectonics of vocal melodies and instrumental themes), and include the aspect of the relationship of authorial systems (Composer – Poet). The scientific novelty of the research is presentation of the laws of genre and style specialization of Ukrainian solo singing, which in the creative experience of M. V. Lysenko are a classical basis of genre differentiation of chamber vocal works: the songs in the folk spirit, romantic songs, romances, monodramatic solo singing/ monologue. Conclusions. Such a phenomenon as Ukrainian solo singing is justifiably considered to be the symbolic embodiment of the Ukrainian mentality (episteme of “philosophy of the heart” / cordocentrism and reflectivity of worldview). Therefore, it is not surprising that as a genre form of chamber vocal lyrics the solo singing occupies a prominent place in the creative heritage of M. V. Lysenko, the founder of the Ukrainian national school of composition. It was he who worked out the internal genre and style differentiation of solo singing in its classical foundations. According to this, the very concept of "solo singing" claims to denote such a wholeness as "chamber vocal lyrics" with its genre and style variants, each of which is focused on certain principles of musical poetic relations. The latter, in fact, determine the technique of vocalization of the verbal text with a focus on the embodiment of the poetic code in accordance with the genre specifics. This determines the differentiation of architectural principles of vocalization of the poetic original (a measure of reproduction of declamatory specifics of musical expression) and intonation texture specialization of instrumental themes, which also always has a differentiated expression in the system of music-poetry relations. Subsequently, the classical foundations of genre and style specialization of solo singing laid by M. V. Lysenko became genre invariants and entered the works of modernists (for example, solo songs by Nestor Nyzhankivsky and Vasyl Barvinsky) as ways of modelling the genre form of chamber vocal lyrics without loss of connection with invariant structures.

Audio classification for music information retrieval of Hindustani vocal music

An important task in music information retrieval of Indian art music is the recognition of the larger musicological frameworks, called ragas, on which the performances are based. Ragas are characterized by prominent musical notes, motifs, general sequences of notes used and embellishments improvised by the performers. In this work we propose a convolutional neural network-based model to work on the mel-spectrograms for classication of steady note regions and note transition regions in vocal melodies which can be used for finding prominent musical notes. It is demonstrated that, good classification accuracy is obtained using the proposed model.

Rancangan Garap Karya Gending Sekar Jagad Berbasis Motif Batik Gaya Yogyakarta

The creation of works employing transforming media becomes an exciting breakthrough in the art industry to study. Using the concept of changing the media, the meeting of the two different media, such as art and music, provides opportunities for the emergence of a broader range of creative work. The design of musical works based on the inspiration and philosophy from the media of batik has complexity and beauty and high value as the great works from the Indonesian ancestors. Sekar Jagad is a title for the composition of musical design, taken from the name of a batik motif that is very familiar in Javanese culture. By understanding the basic batik motifs such as gringsing, kawung, machete, nitik, cement and poleng, the elements of vocal melodies performed in two different voices gave an overview of the concept of the Sekar Jagad batik motif. It indeed required knowledge of the shape, function and character of the batik motif itself as the basis for gending in musical arts. The melody arrangement was made entirely with two tunings or pelog and slendro scales. It was intended to find the characters that best suits the characteristics and philosophy of batik. The elements of batik motifs that were put together into one Sekar Jagad batik motif were then applied through vocal melodies and supported by lyrics that described some of these batik elements.

Musical rhythm transcription based on Bayesian piece-specific score models capturing repetitions

Most work on musical score models (a.k.a. musical language models) for music transcription has focused on describing the local sequential dependence of notes in musical scores and failed to capture their global repetitive structure, which can be a useful guide for transcribing music. Focusing on rhythm, we formulate several classes of Bayesian Markov models of musical scores that describe repetitions indirectly using the sparse transition probabilities of notes or note patterns. This enables us to construct piece-specific models for unseen scores with an unfixed repetitive structure and to derive tractable inference algorithms. Moreover, to describe approximate repetitions, we explicitly incorporate a process for modifying the repeated notes/note patterns. We apply these models as prior musical score models for rhythm transcription, where piece-specific score models are inferred from performed MIDI data by Bayesian learning , in contrast to the conventional supervised construction of score models. Evaluations using the vocal melodies of popular music showed that the Bayesian models improved the transcription accuracy for most of the tested model types, indicating the universal efficacy of the proposed approach. Moreover, we found an effective data representation for modelling rhythms that maximizes the transcription accuracy and computational efficiency.

Bentuk Penyajian Kesenian Senjang dalam Konteks Acara Seremonial di Kota Sekayu

This research is a descriptive study of the phenomenon of Senjang art performance in the context of ceremonial events in the community of Sekayu city. This study used a qualitative approach, with data collection carried out by observation, interviews, and documentation, and data presentation techniques in the form of analytical descriptive writing. The results of this study are in the form of descriptions of the development of Senjang art in the city of Sekayu, and textual descriptions of the presentation of Senjang performances which include; the composition of the presentation of Senjang art, aspects of Senjang literary text, transcription of vocal music melodies, transcription of the main melody form of the musical instruments of Senjang, aspects of the players, the audience, and the place of the performance. Senjang is one of the traditional arts that has developed in Musi Banyuasin district, especially the city of Sekayu. Senjang is an oral literature of the type of pantun and talibun which in its presentation is combined with music and dance. This art has been inherited from generation to generation for a long time by the Musi Banyuasin community, especially the city of Sekayu. Senjang art initially only developed in Sungai Keruh sub-district, but over time this art began to develop in other areas around it, including in Babat Toman sub-district, Sanga Desa sub-district, and Sekayu district. In terms of the performance, Senjang is presented by telling rhymes spontaneously either singly (one person) or spoken by two people (usually in pairs) in an integrated manner, and accompanied by music. The accompaniment music in Senjang presentation usually uses a single organ, and there are some who use a single guitar, with the playing of short melodies that are repeated. In its presentation, the Senjang vocal music speech with accompanying musical instruments is not played simultaneously, but is played alternately.

Enhanced Memory for Vocal Melodies in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Williams Syndrome.

Adults and children with typical development (TD) remember vocal melodies (without lyrics) better than instrumental melodies, which is attributed to the biological and social significance of human vocalizations. Here we asked whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who have persistent difficulties with communication and social interaction, and adolescents and adults with Williams syndrome (WS), who are highly sociable, even indiscriminately friendly, exhibit a memory advantage for vocal melodies like that observed in individuals with TD. We tested 26 children with ASD, 26 adolescents and adults with WS of similar mental age, and 26 children with TD on their memory for vocal and instrumental (piano, marimba) melodies. After exposing them to 12 unfamiliar folk melodies with different timbres, we required them to indicate whether each of 24 melodies (half heard previously) was old (heard before) or new (not heard before) during an unexpected recognition test. Although the groups successfully distinguished the old from the new melodies, they differed in overall memory. Nevertheless, they exhibited a comparable advantage for vocal melodies. In short, individuals with ASD and WS show enhanced processing of socially significant auditory signals in the context of music. LAY SUMMARY: Typically developing children and adults remember vocal melodies better than instrumental melodies. In this study, we found that children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, who have severe social processing deficits, and children and adults with Williams syndrome, who are highly sociable, exhibit comparable memory advantages for vocal melodies. The results have implications for musical interventions with these populations.

Antalya Elmalı Tekke Village Bektashis Musical Practices and Faith Related Vocal Melodies

This research aims to determine the beliefs related to the musical practices of the Alevi and Bektashigroup who living in the Tekke village of Elmali district of Antalya province and also determine theplace of these melodies in the ritual. The cultural heritage of the Tekke Bektashi’s has been kept alivein a rich festival of faith-related melodies dimension, and also the lack of a work about musicologyin the past years on this heritage has prepared an environment for us to investigate.The data in the field study were collected using participant observation, interview techniquesand documents. Visual and auditory recording devices and observation notes were used duringobservation and interviews, and literary texts on existing written materials about Tekke village andacademic documents were created for other research documents. In the analysis of the data, audiovisualmaterials are dictated and information which not related with the research purpose is extracted.The field research which started on November 10, 2016 lasted for one year and on the basis of theresearch, two peculiar semah, one duvaz-i imam folk songs were compiled. Besides the places andfunctions of these works in the cem, the concepts and facts related to the ritual music of the TekkeBektashis and the instruments the Bektashis used in the ‘’cem’’, the features of the safety responsiblefor the music in the cemetery explained in this study.

The singing voice is special: Persistence of superior memory for vocal melodies despite vocal-motor distractions

Vocal melodies sung without lyrics (la la) are remembered better than instrumental melodies. What causes the advantage? One possibility is that vocal music elicits subvocal imitation, which could promote enhanced motor representations of a melody. If this motor interpretation is correct, distracting the motor system during encoding should reduce the memory advantage for vocal over piano melodies. In Experiment 1, participants carried out movements of the mouth (i.e., chew gum) or hand (i.e., squeeze a beanbag) while listening to 24 unfamiliar folk melodies (half vocal, half piano). In a subsequent memory test, they rated the same melodies and 24 timbre-matched foils from ‘1–Definitely New’ to ‘7–Definitely Old’. There was a memory advantage for vocal over piano melodies with no effect of group and no interaction. In Experiment 2, participants carried out motor activities during encoding more closely related to singing, either silently articulating (la la) or vocalizing without articulating (humming continuously). Once again, there was a significant advantage for vocal melodies with no effect or interaction of group. In Experiment 3, participants audibly whispered (la la) repeatedly during encoding. Again, the voice advantage was present and did not differ appreciably from prior research with no motor task during encoding. However, we observed that the spontaneous phase-locking of whisper rate and musical beat tended to predict enhanced memory for vocal melodies. Altogether the results challenge the notion that subvocal rehearsal of the melody drives enhanced memory for vocal melodies. Instead, the voice may enhance engagement.

Инструментарий узбекской музыке:Исторический экскурс и современность

Многим известно, что вопросами происхождения, функционирования и взаимодействия музыкальных инструментов занимается специальная наука органология. В числе её устоявшихся правил считается, что инструмент - важнейшая опора музыканта. Это в известном смысле напарник и спутник исполнителя в его творческих устремлениях, надежная основа импровизации, источник вдохновения и фантазии.
 Особенно велико значение музыкальных инструментов в условиях бесписьменной традиции. Тут, помимо всего, музыкальные инструменты выступают своеобразными фиксаторами устоявшихся норм устных традиций.
 Не случайно система нотописи в классической музыке Востока формировалась как табулатура для господствующего в своей эпохе инструмента, например, табулатура для уда XIII-XV вв., хорезмская танбурная табулатура XIX века. С помощью инструмента объяснялись ладовые и ритмические системы, принципы строения вокальных и инструментальных мелодий. Недаром говорят, что бухарский танбур – ключ к системе макомата, тар – олицетворение азербайджано-иранских мугамов и дастгяхов, кашгарский танбур (иной мензуры и принципов исполнения, нежели бухарский) ведущий инструмент уйгурских мукамов.
 Формы и конструкции инструментов – результат вековых поисков музыкантов совершенства тембро-акустических возможностей, приспособление к себе орудий своей профессии. А звукоряды, устоявшихся на них – это тоже результат естественного отбора не одного поколения музыкантов-исполнителей и слушателей, словом, материальное воплощение этапов истории музыкальной культуры.

Ritual folk vocal art of Ukrainians of Northern Moldova: Transformation and Modification Processes

One of the most important tasks of modern Ukrainian ethnomusicology is fixation and study of traditional musical culture not only in our country but also abroad: in Ukrainian ethnographic lands aswell as in remote corners of other countries, where Ukrainians are compactly settled. Considerable scientific progress has already been made in this area.Today we have a number of scientific achievements on the materials of traditional music of Ukrainians in the north of Moldova. However, the problem of presenting a more detailed melotypological picture of traditional, in particular ceremonial and especially vocal creativity, that still exists in these areas in active or at least passive forms, remains relevant.Given this, most typical ritual melodies of Ukrainians of northern Moldova, recorded by O. Kharchyshyn and N. Pastukh during 2005-2009 in 41 villages and two cities of ten districts of the region and submitted to collection Folklore of Ukrainians in northern Moldova: songs and recitatives,arethe object of this research.Also considered is a number of melodies, which transcripts were provided for musical editing by the authors of this study, but were not included in the collection. Melotypes of folk vocal works, which serve the calendar and family-ritual genre cycles are subject of study. The main goal is to determine the modification and transformation processes in the analyzed melotypes, to identify what is common and different in comparison to the analogues of Ukrainian traditional music in general.Almost the entire genre spectrum of ceremonial folk vocal melodies inherent in Ukrainian traditional music culture has been recorded in Moldova: carols (kolyadka, shchedrivka), malanka, spring songs (haivkas), Kupala, baptismal, wedding, mourning and funeral songs. Ukrainians in Moldova have both child and adult folk music culture.The present state of life of folk vocal works of Ukrainians in the north of Moldova from the ethnomusicological point of view generally testifies to the typological commonality with the traditional folk music culture of the Ukrainian people. The unity of this culture is manifested even in common modification and transformation processes of typical musical-rhythmic forms and their components. Of course, there is a slight difference, as a result of assimilation transformations caused by foreign nation influences and, accordingly, the gradual loss of ethnic identity.Therefore, Ukrainians of Moldova were not only able to preserve the achievements of their nation in the development of traditional musical culture (often only in passive memory, however, and, of course, with minor elements of assimilative influence, which is manifested primarily in intonation melodic inversions and inter-ethnic community of melotypes), but also to multiply them through the assimilation and cultivation of foreign ethnic sacramental acquisitions. As a result, they were able to create their own unique multi-vector folk music style.

Bentuk Penyajian Kesenian Senjang dalam Konteks Acara Seremonial di Kota Sekayu

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>This research is a descriptive study of the phenomenon of Senjang art performance in the context of ceremonial events in the community of Sekayu city. This study used a qualitative approach, with data collection carried out by observation, interviews, and documentation, and data presentation techniques in the form of analytical descriptive writing. The results of this study are in the form of descriptions of the development of Senjang art in the city of Sekayu, and textual descriptions of the presentation of Senjang performances which include; the composition of the presentation of Senjang art, aspects of Senjang literary text, transcription of vocal music melodies, transcription of the main melody form of the musical instruments of Senjang, aspects of the players, the audience, and the place of the performance. </span><span>Senjang is one of the traditional arts that has developed in Musi Banyuasin district, especially the city of Sekayu. Senjang is an oral literature of the type of pantun and talibun which in its presentation is combined with music and dance. This art has been inherited from generation to generation for a long time by the Musi Banyuasin community, especially the city of Sekayu. Senjang art initially only developed in Sungai Keruh sub-district, but over time this art began to develop in other areas around it, including in Babat Toman sub-district, Sanga Desa sub-district, and Sekayu district. In terms of the performance, Senjang is presented by telling rhymes spontaneously either singly (one person) or spoken by two people (usually in pairs) in an integrated manner, and accompanied by music. The accompaniment music in Senjang presentation usually uses a single organ, and there are some who use a single guitar, with the playing of short melodies that are repeated. In its presentation, the Senjang vocal music speech with accompanying musical instruments is not played simultaneously, but is played alternately. </span></p><p><span>Keyword : </span><span>Presentation Form, Senjang, Sekayu City<br /> </span></p></div></div></div>

Vocal-motor interference eliminates the memory advantage for vocal melodies

Spontaneous motor cortical activity during passive perception of action has been interpreted as a sensorimotor simulation of the observed action. There is currently interest in how sensorimotor simulation can support higher-up cognitive functions, such as memory, but this is relatively unexplored in the auditory domain. In the present study, we examined whether the established memory advantage for vocal melodies over non-vocal melodies is attributable to stronger sensorimotor simulation during perception of vocal relative to non-vocal action. Participants listened to 24 unfamiliar folk melodies presented in vocal or piano timbres. These were encoded during three interference conditions: whispering (vocal-motor interference), tapping (non-vocal motor interference), and no-interference. Afterwards, participants heard the original 24 melodies presented among 24 foils and judged whether melodies were old or new. A vocal-memory advantage was found in the no-interference and tapping conditions; however, the advantage was eliminated in the whispering condition. This suggests that sensorimotor simulationduring the perception of vocal melodies is responsible for the observed vocal-memory advantage.

The Interaction of Poetic Text and Music in Opus 49 by J. Brahms

The Interaction of Poetic Text and Music in Opus 49 by J. Brahms

Principles of interpreting P. Tychyna’s poetry in the vocal cycle “Enharmonic” by L. Dychko

Principles of interpreting P. Tychyna’s poetry in the vocal cycle “Enharmonic” by L. Dychko