Songs in African Tonal Languages: Contrasting the Tonal System and the Melody
Over the past fifty years there has been a dramatic increase in studies investigating the rules of tone-tune correspondence in vocal music performed in tonal languages. In this paper we argue that considering structural properties of tonal systems is important for studying the interaction between tone and melody. Using songs in Guinean Kpelle and Guro as test cases, we prove that contour tones are less preserved in melody than level tones, and surface tones are reflected in melody rather than underlying tones. We also show that syllable structure as well as style, genre and structure of songs affect tone-tune correspondence.
Comparing musical textsetting in French and in English songs
A strophic song is in general a sequence of repetitions of the same tune, one repetition for each stanza. Strophic songs in French have the following properties: when two stanzas have the same tune, they have the same number of lines, and for any i , the i -th line in one stanza has the same number of syllables as the i -th line in the other, and it also has the same distribution of melismas. These properties follow from a more general requirement on textsettings that we call Positional Parallelism. Whereas violations of Positional Parallelism are rather infrequent in traditional French songs, they are quite common in English songs. We propose to relate this difference between French and English songs with another difference in textsetting practice. English matches stress and musical beat anywhere in a line. French enforces the stress/beat match in a rigid manner only at the end of lines, which is presumably a reflection of the fact that in French, stress is easily perceptible only before major breaks.
Current Issues in English Education for Young Learners in East Asia
Recognizing English as an increasingly powerful lingua franca, many governments in East Asia have implemented English-language education at the...