Predicting Variation of Folk Songs: A Corpus Analysis Study on the Memorability of Melodies
We present a hypothesis-driven study on the variation of melody phrases in a collection of Dutch folk songs. We investigate the variation of phrases within the folk songs through a pattern matching method which detects occurrences of these phrases within folk song variants, and ask the question: do...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2017-04-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
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| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00621/full |
| _version_ | 1818081926000410624 |
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| author | Berit Janssen Berit Janssen John A. Burgoyne Henkjan Honing |
| author_facet | Berit Janssen Berit Janssen John A. Burgoyne Henkjan Honing |
| author_sort | Berit Janssen |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | We present a hypothesis-driven study on the variation of melody phrases in a collection of Dutch folk songs. We investigate the variation of phrases within the folk songs through a pattern matching method which detects occurrences of these phrases within folk song variants, and ask the question: do the phrases which show less variation have different properties than those which do? We hypothesize that theories on melody recall may predict variation, and as such, investigate phrase length, the position and number of repetitions of a given phrase in the melody in which it occurs, as well as expectancy and motif repetivity. We show that all of these predictors account for the observed variation to a moderate degree, and that, as hypothesized, those phrases vary less which are rather short, contain highly expected melodic material, occur relatively early in the melody, and contain small pitch intervals. A large portion of the variance is left unexplained by the current model, however, which leads us to a discussion of future approaches to study memorability of melodies. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-10T19:13:57Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-04c454b45bc94ee0a7a335e173707930 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-10T19:13:57Z |
| publishDate | 2017-04-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-04c454b45bc94ee0a7a335e1737079302022-12-22T01:36:39ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782017-04-01810.3389/fpsyg.2017.00621238533Predicting Variation of Folk Songs: A Corpus Analysis Study on the Memorability of MelodiesBerit Janssen0Berit Janssen1John A. Burgoyne2Henkjan Honing3Meertens Institute, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and SciencesAmsterdam, NetherlandsMusic Cognition Group, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of AmsterdamAmsterdam, NetherlandsMusic Cognition Group, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of AmsterdamAmsterdam, NetherlandsMusic Cognition Group, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of AmsterdamAmsterdam, NetherlandsWe present a hypothesis-driven study on the variation of melody phrases in a collection of Dutch folk songs. We investigate the variation of phrases within the folk songs through a pattern matching method which detects occurrences of these phrases within folk song variants, and ask the question: do the phrases which show less variation have different properties than those which do? We hypothesize that theories on melody recall may predict variation, and as such, investigate phrase length, the position and number of repetitions of a given phrase in the melody in which it occurs, as well as expectancy and motif repetivity. We show that all of these predictors account for the observed variation to a moderate degree, and that, as hypothesized, those phrases vary less which are rather short, contain highly expected melodic material, occur relatively early in the melody, and contain small pitch intervals. A large portion of the variance is left unexplained by the current model, however, which leads us to a discussion of future approaches to study memorability of melodies.http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00621/fullmusic information retrievalmusic cognitionrecallmemorabilitystabilityfolk songs |
| spellingShingle | Berit Janssen Berit Janssen John A. Burgoyne Henkjan Honing Predicting Variation of Folk Songs: A Corpus Analysis Study on the Memorability of Melodies Frontiers in Psychology music information retrieval music cognition recall memorability stability folk songs |
| title | Predicting Variation of Folk Songs: A Corpus Analysis Study on the Memorability of Melodies |
| title_full | Predicting Variation of Folk Songs: A Corpus Analysis Study on the Memorability of Melodies |
| title_fullStr | Predicting Variation of Folk Songs: A Corpus Analysis Study on the Memorability of Melodies |
| title_full_unstemmed | Predicting Variation of Folk Songs: A Corpus Analysis Study on the Memorability of Melodies |
| title_short | Predicting Variation of Folk Songs: A Corpus Analysis Study on the Memorability of Melodies |
| title_sort | predicting variation of folk songs a corpus analysis study on the memorability of melodies |
| topic | music information retrieval music cognition recall memorability stability folk songs |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00621/full |
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