{"title":"A comparative analysis of melodic rhythm in two corpora of American popular music","authors":"C. White, Joe Pater, Mara Breen","doi":"10.1080/17459737.2022.2075946","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This paper compares two corpora of melodies drawn from premillennial and postmillennial American popular music, and identifies several notable differences in their use of rhythm. The premillennial corpus contains melodies written between 1957 and 1997 [deClercq and Temperley (2011. “A Corpus Analysis of Rock Harmony.” Popular Music 30 (1): 47–70)], while the postmillennial corpus (compiled for this study) consists of songs popular between 2015 and 2019. For both corpora, we analysed (1) the distribution of note onsets within measures; (2) the distribution of four-note rhythmic cells, (3) the speed of melodic delivery, and (4) the tempo of the tactus. Our analyses indicated that the postmillennial melodies are delivered more quickly, are distributed more evenly throughout their measures, repeat rhythmic cells more frequently, and are annotated at slower tempos. Even when the tactus tempos were standardized into an allowable window of 70–140 BPM, this effect, though smaller, remained. We then use our techniques to observe the properties of three representative postmillennial tracks, finding that salient information can be located in both standardized and non-standardized tactus data, and that tempo-variant differences between corpora are closely connected to musical genre, with music designated as “pop” being more similar over both genres, and postmillennial rap and hip-hop introducing the most uniqueness.","PeriodicalId":50138,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematics and Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Mathematics and Music","FirstCategoryId":"100","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17459737.2022.2075946","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"MATHEMATICS, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
This paper compares two corpora of melodies drawn from premillennial and postmillennial American popular music, and identifies several notable differences in their use of rhythm. The premillennial corpus contains melodies written between 1957 and 1997 [deClercq and Temperley (2011. “A Corpus Analysis of Rock Harmony.” Popular Music 30 (1): 47–70)], while the postmillennial corpus (compiled for this study) consists of songs popular between 2015 and 2019. For both corpora, we analysed (1) the distribution of note onsets within measures; (2) the distribution of four-note rhythmic cells, (3) the speed of melodic delivery, and (4) the tempo of the tactus. Our analyses indicated that the postmillennial melodies are delivered more quickly, are distributed more evenly throughout their measures, repeat rhythmic cells more frequently, and are annotated at slower tempos. Even when the tactus tempos were standardized into an allowable window of 70–140 BPM, this effect, though smaller, remained. We then use our techniques to observe the properties of three representative postmillennial tracks, finding that salient information can be located in both standardized and non-standardized tactus data, and that tempo-variant differences between corpora are closely connected to musical genre, with music designated as “pop” being more similar over both genres, and postmillennial rap and hip-hop introducing the most uniqueness.
本文比较了千禧年前和千禧年后美国流行音乐的两个旋律语料库,并确定了它们在节奏使用上的几个显著差异。千禧年语料库包含1957年至1997年间创作的旋律[deClercq and Temperley(2011)]。《摇滚和声的语料库分析》流行音乐30(1):47-70)],而后千禧年语料库(为本研究编制)由2015年至2019年之间的流行歌曲组成。对于这两个语料库,我们分析了(1)音符开始在度量内的分布;(2)四音符节奏细胞的分布,(3)旋律传递的速度,(4)动作的速度。我们的分析表明,千禧年后的旋律传递得更快,在整个小节中分布得更均匀,重复节奏细胞的频率更高,并且以较慢的速度注释。即使将节拍标准化为70-140 BPM的允许范围,这种影响虽然较小,但仍然存在。然后,我们使用我们的技术观察了三首代表性的后千年曲目的属性,发现标准化和非标准化的tactus数据中都可以找到显著的信息,语料库之间的节奏变化差异与音乐类型密切相关,被指定为“流行”的音乐在这两种类型中都更加相似,而后千年的说唱和嘻哈音乐引入了最独特的特征。
期刊介绍:
Journal of Mathematics and Music aims to advance the use of mathematical modelling and computation in music theory. The Journal focuses on mathematical approaches to musical structures and processes, including mathematical investigations into music-theoretic or compositional issues as well as mathematically motivated analyses of musical works or performances. In consideration of the deep unsolved ontological and epistemological questions concerning knowledge about music, the Journal is open to a broad array of methodologies and topics, particularly those outside of established research fields such as acoustics, sound engineering, auditory perception, linguistics etc.