Musical Prosody
Strategies of Performance Revealed in Graphs
Elaine Chew
ELE021 / ELED021 / ELEM021
6 Feb 2012
Logistics
• 2-3 papers/presentations per week
– two volunteers for afternoon of Mon, 27 Feb, 2012
• Exam questions will be drawn from
readings/presentations and assignments
• Module material posted publicly at
www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~eniale/teaching/elem021
Prosody (Palmer & Hutchins)
• In Speech: Variations in frequency, amplitude,
duration that form grouping, prominence, and
intonation
• In Music: Variations in frequency, time,
amplitude, and timbre to create expression to
– Communicate emotion (Juslin & Sloboda 2001)
– Clarify structure (Kendall & Carterette 1990)
• Indicated by composer in score (Lerdahl & Jackendoff 1983)
• Indicated by performer in interpretation (Apel 1972)
Prosody in Speech
• Acoustic variation in fundamental frequency, spectral
information, amplitude, and relative durations of speech.
• Can be explained by cognitive structures implicit in minds
of speakers (Pierrehumbert 1999)
• Word level: disambiguating bet competing words
– E.g. greenhouse vs. green house
• Above word level: syntax/semantics/discourse structure
– E.g. Illocutionary intent: statement or request
• Most definitions distinguish between pitch and other (e.g.
time) dimensions
Prosody in Music
• Relatively fixed in terms of mostly pitch, and
also duration, categories: discussion focuses
on rhythm, grouping, prominence
• Musical meter ~ linguistic stress
– Syllable timed vs. stress timed languages
• Difference: degree of isynchrony or temporal
regularity
Kreisler Plays Kreisler
Function of Music Prosody
• Segmentation: segmenting continuous audio
stream into component units
• Focus and Prominence: highlighting items of
relative importance
• Coordination: such as turn taking
• Emotional response: attributing emotional
states
13
25
1
37
85
133
49
97
61
109
145
73
121
157
169
Comparing performances
Daniel Barenboim
Feb 02, 1987 ℗ 1987
Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
Hamburg
Maurizio Pollini
℗ 1992 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
Hamburg
Artur Schnabel
℗ 2009 EMI Records Ltd.
Segmentation
• Phrase boundaries marked by changes in
intensity, tone duration, and articulation
• Phrase boundaries indicated by
– Phrase-final lengthening
– Decreased amplitude (Drake & Palmer 93, Palmer 96)
• Hierarchy:
– Amount of slowing corresponding to depth of
embedding (Todd 85/89, Shaffer & Todd 87)
www.sonicvisualiser.org
Beat Annotation of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata
performed by Artur Schnabel
first note
of each bar
Comparisons of the three
performances
(b) Pollini
starts each phrase at the beginning of each bar
(each phrase marked by an accel-decel arc)
(a) Barenboim
starts phrases at beginning of bars
with a few exceptions
accelerate
across
barline
(c) Schnabel
decelerate
across
barline
accelerate
across
barline
almost never aligns phrase starts with barline
as if always negating the barline
“This is the tension between metric groups
(measured, regularly recurring beat groupings)
shown by the bar lines in the score, and the
boundaries of figural groupings or gestures
(‘temporal gestalts’) which are not generally
shown in an unedited score. Thus, on one hand,
performers must find the figural or phrasing
groups hidden in the score and on the other,
intuitively musical players must learn to overcome
the seductive appearance of the bar lines which
do not represent their natural feel for the gestural
grouping of music.” (p.94, Bamberger 2011)
“This is the tension between metric groups
(measured, regularly recurring beat groupings)
shown by the bar lines in the score, and the
boundaries of figural groupings or gestures
(‘temporal gestalts’) which are not generally
shown in an unedited score. Thus, on one hand,
performers must find the figural or phrasing
groups hidden in the score and on the other,
intuitively musical players must learn to overcome
the seductive appearance of the bar lines which
do not represent their natural feel for the gestural
grouping of music.” (p.94, Bamberger 2011)
Prominence
• Using stress/accent to signal focus or more
significant events
• Devices:
– Louder or change articulation (e.g. staccato) to
mark metrically important (Sloboda 1983, 1985)
– Louder, longer, more legato (Gabrielsson 1974)
– Vibrato (Seashore 1938, Small 1937)
– Exaggerating intervals
Comparing performances
Daniel Barenboim
Feb 02, 1987 ℗ 1987
Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
Hamburg
Maurizio Pollini
℗ 1992 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
Hamburg
Artur Schnabel
℗ 2009 EMI Records Ltd.
13
25
1
37
85
133
49
97
dotted rhythm
61
dotted rhythm
109
145
dotted rhythm
73
121
157
169
dotted rhythm
Entrance of the RH melody
13
25
1
37
85
133
bass line
49
97
61
109
145
73
121
157
169
Schnabel: bass line
bass line onsets
only lands
on the beat
here
listen
Schnabel: large scale gestures
13
listen
25
1
37
85
133
49
97
61
109
145
73
121
157
169
“the thing that stands out in the Schnabel performance is
his almost mysterious ability to create or to project a 'long
line' when the piece is basically slow-moving to static.What
I mean by 'mysterious' is that trying to account for how that
whole first phrase (even though only 4 bars long) is as if in
one long breath. The other performers seem to stop at
each bass note, with the right hand just embellishing it, but
not make it move, even in its stasis. But if you try to listen
for particular aspects–dynamics, rubato, balance–I, at least,
can't say what he does to make that long breath happen. As
he used to say, if you can HEAR it, you can make it happen.
It's a kind of concentration, never letting the bass line
(which couldn't be more banal–a sort of ordinary 'walking
bass') stop.” - Bamberger
“the thing that stands out in the Schnabel performance is
his almost mysterious ability to create or to project a long
line when the piece is basically slow-moving to static. What
I mean by 'mysterious' is that trying to account for how that
whole first phrase (even though only 4 bars long) is as if in
one long breath. The other performers seem to stop at
each bass note, with the right hand just embellishing it, but
not make it move, even in its stasis. But if you try to listen
for particular aspects–dynamics, rubato, balance–I, at least,
can't say what he does to make that long breath happen. As
he used to say, if you can HEAR it, you can make it happen.
It's a kind of concentration, never letting the bass line
(which couldn't be more banal–a sort of ordinary 'walking
bass') stop.” - Bamberger
Schnabel: large scale gestures
Schnabel: large scale gestures
Coordination
• Regulate turn-taking and coordination
• Coordination
– in speech through intonation patterns and pauses
– in music through rate priming (tempo persistence)
• Turn-taking
– in improvised music, elaboration upon previously
heard ideas (Johnson-Laird 1991, Pressing 1988)
Emotional Response
• Prosodic features conveyed emotion in
addition to structural features (mode)
• Most successful emotions (Gabrielsson &
Juslin 1996, Krumhansl 1997, Juslin 2001):
– Sad: slow tempo, low sound level, legato
– Happy: fast tempo, high sound level, staccato
Assignment 1
1. Bring two versions of a piece of music that
has variations in tempo or loudness to share
with the class.
Assignment 1
2. Download and install Sonic Visualiser. Select a
30-60 second segment of music containing
tempo variations. Annotate the beat onsets
for this same segment in your two audio
examples using SonicVisualiser.
3. Plot the Beat onsets on a timeline using Excel
or Matlab.
Assignment 1
4. Plot the Tempo at each Beat as:
• a reciprocal of the inter-beat onset-interval
• a moving average over a window of three
beats
• a moving average over a window of five beats
• another function of the beats data you
generated, specifying clearly the function that
you used
Office Hours
• Elaine Chew (ENG 2.12)
– Tue 3pm-4pm and by appointment
• Dimitrios Giannoulis
– Wed 1pm-3pm
Reference
Palmer, C., & Hutchins, S. (2006). What is musical prosody? In B.
H. Ross (Ed.), Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 46: 245278.
Chew, E. (to appear). About Time: Strategies of Performance
Revealed in Graphs. Visions of Research in Music Education
Special Issue in honor of Jeanne Bamberger, ISSN 1938-2065.
Coming Soon …
Gerhard Widmer
Werner Goebl
Simon Dixon
2002, 2008