The origins of syncopation in American popular music

Temperley, David

doi:10.1017/s0261143021000283

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The fourth crotchet is also accented, but on the low (‘ hembra ’) drum. This beat fits into the fourth position syncopated anticipation of the bass line, following David Temperley's terminology (2019, 2021). Figure 7 shows a basic timbal baqueteo setup in típico.…”

Section: The Timbal: At the Heart Of Típicomentioning

confidence: 77%

Los sentimientos del alma: cultural dialogue and the multiple origins of Panamanian típico

Robles

2023

Pop. Mus.

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In this article, I explore the processes of cultural dialogue through which European and Caribbean dances such as the waltz, the pasillo, the polka, and the danzón became tributaries of Panamanian típico. These genres, particularly the thriving danzón culture in Panama, contributed in various degrees to the shaping of típico as local performers adopted, adapted and reinterpreted rhythms and melodic material from the context of existing musical traditions. Expanding on recent research, I show how this cultural dialogue developed into a platform for innovation from which típico emerges as a distinct genre in the mid 20th century, a reinterpretation of the dance repertoire known as danzón–cumbia by composers which I collectively call the Azuero School. I examine how this repertoire and its performance practice became channels for discontinuous cultural dialogue, experimentation and reinterpretation of multiple influences in a context of political and social change in Panama.

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Section: The Timbal: At the Heart Of Típicomentioning

confidence: 77%

Los sentimientos del alma: cultural dialogue and the multiple origins of Panamanian típico

Robles

2023

Pop. Mus.

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“…As a case study, drawing on a microcorpus of instances of Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion's creaky voice [ae] vowel (699 instances over 101 songs), I've argued that vocables can perform both percussive and formbearing functions in rap. The majority of formal [ae] vocables are anticipatory fourth-position syncopations (Temperley 2021) occurring on the final eighth-note of the 4-bar hypermeter. Loosely applying the integrative analytical model I developed elsewhere (Wallmark 2022), this article traces the phonetics, acoustics, crossmodal implications, and musical functions of the [ae] vocable, then situates these observations in a broader sociohistorical theater.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing Vocables in Rap

Wallmark¹

2022

MTO

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This article examines the structural and semiotic functions of vocables in rap music. Analytical studies of the rapping voice have predominantly focused on lyrics, rhyme, accent, rhythm, and the emergent property of flow. Although timbral aspects of the voice play an important role in rappers’ flow, identity construction, and reception, investigations of timbre and non-lexical expression (e.g., vocables) remain comparatively rare. As a case study, I focus on the signature ad-lib vocable of Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion—a creaky-voiced [æ] vowel, like the “a” in cat. Analyzing a corpus of all recorded instances of this vocable in her commercially available recordings (699 instances in 101 songs), along with timbral and phonetic close-reading, I claim that vocables can serve both percussive and formal functions in rap music. Synthesizing perspectives from sociolinguistics, gender and sexuality studies, and brand theory, I argue that Megan Thee Stallion uses her vocable as a timbre trademark: a unique, memorable, and immediately recognizable sonic icon of her brand persona. This brand is closely associated with the gendered and racialized social history of vocal fry in representations of female sexual pleasure. I close by suggesting that vocal timbre plays a leading though often invisible role in hip-hop expression and politics.

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“…𝑞 𝑖𝑗 = 𝑊 𝑗 𝑄 ℎ 𝑖 𝑐(𝑙−1) , (10) where l stands for the iteration step, 2 here, σ stands for RELU activation function, W outer , W inner , and W j Q are learnable parameters, and J is the number of heads in multi-head attention, 8 here. The loss function is:…”

Section: Chord Generation Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(3) duration: the length of time a note is played, including quarter notes, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes [10];…”

Section: Relevant Music Knowledge and Automatic Music Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on Chord Generation in Automated Music Composition Using Deep Learning Algorithms

Zhu

2023

IJCAI

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With the development of technology, automated music composition has received widespread attention in music creation. This article mainly focuses on the generation of chords in automated music composition. First, relevant music knowledge was briefly introduced, and then the composition of the Transformer model was explained. A two-layer bidirectional Transformer method was designed to generate chords for the main melody and chorus separately, followed by the establishment of chord coloring and sound production models. Ten music professionals and 40 ordinary college students compared the coherence, pleasantness, and innovation of the chords generated by Hidden Markov Model (HMM), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and the method proposed in this paper. The results showed that the chord generated by the method proposed in this paper achieved higher scores in the evaluation. Overall, the scores given by the music professionals and ordinary college students were 3.64 and 3.91, respectively, which were higher than those of the HMM and LSTM methods. The experimental results prove the superiority of the chord generation method proposed in this paper. The method can be applied to automated music composition.Povzetek: Raziskava se osredotoča na avtomatizirano ustvarjanje glasbe, zlasti generacijo akordov, in predstavi izboljšano metodo z uporabo dvoslojnega dvosmernega pretvornega modela. V primerjavi z metodami HMM in LSTM je nov pristop pokazal višje rezultate v ocenah koherence, prijetnosti in inovativnosti, kar potrjuje njegovo učinkovitost in uporabnost v avtomatizirani glasbeni kompoziciji.

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The origins of syncopation in American popular music

Cited by 6 publications

References 24 publications

Los sentimientos del alma: cultural dialogue and the multiple origins of Panamanian típico

Los sentimientos del alma: cultural dialogue and the multiple origins of Panamanian típico

Analyzing Vocables in Rap

Research on Chord Generation in Automated Music Composition Using Deep Learning Algorithms

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