bravi, paolo (2013) "microcreativity. vocal releases in cauda as stylistic marks in the sardinian a...

7/25/2019 Bravi, Paolo (2013) "Microcreativity. Vocal releases in cauda as stylistic marks in the Sardinian a tenore singing"

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MICROCREATIVITY:VOCAL RELEASESIN CAUDAAS STYLISTICMARKS IN SARDINIANA TENORE SINGING

PAOLO BRAVI

Introduction

The a tenore song is a genre of multipart vocal singing practiced in thecentral area of Sardinia, mostly in the sub-regions Barbagia and Baronia,

by singers with various degrees of specialization on various occasions,among which are the accompaniment of poetry contests and dancing. Athorough introduction to the a tenoresong has recently been published as

part of theEnciclopedia della musica sarda(Casu and Lutzu 2012-2013):

Pilosu 2012a and 2012b.The four male voices comprising an a tenorechoir are usually calledbassu, contra, boghe and mesu boghe (from the lowest to the highestvoice). Among them, the role of the bogheis distinct from that of the otherthree: he sings the verbal text (usually poetry in Sardinian language),whereas the other three parts provide a vocal accompaniment usingnonsense syllables. The two lower parts of the accompaniment choir, thebassuand the contra, use characteristic guttural voices, which are obtainedthrough a particular constriction of the laryngeal muscles. In the case of

the bassu, this entails the doubling of the period, i.e. the production of anote one octave below the one that would be produced in modal voice(Bailly, Henrich, Pelorson 2010).

The intervention of the three voices of accompaniment is realized insections called corfos(sing. corfu). In the corfosthe three accompanying

parts of the tenorebassu (plural: bassos), contra (plural: contras) andmesu boghe (plural: mesu boghes)sing together, though not always in ahomorhythmic way, sometimes along with the soloist part, the boghe.Their melodic profiles may vary, particularly as far as the mesu bogheand

the contraparts are concerned, but the most common disposition of thevoices, found at the end of each corfu, is represented in fig. 1.


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Paolo Bravi 195

Fig. 1. The usual disposition of the voices in the a tenoresongs at the end of thesections called corfos.

2. Materials and method

The topic of the analysis presented here is a stylistic feature that can beobserved in some singers at the end of the corfos, i. e. an emphasis of theclosure created by the pronunciation of a nasal (usually [m]- or [n]-like)sound, sometimes preceded by a glottal stop and/or a glottal frication afterthe last vowel of the corfu.

Io ci gioco con questo elemento [lenfatizzazione della chiusura del corfu]. un po come lasciare limpronta della tua voce. Ed molto udibile, gliascoltatori lo notano, e te lo chiedono: Ma che cos questa cosa che fatealla fine del canto? Si sente questo rilascio, come se fosse quasi il

rinculo proprio della pressione sonora. un effetto che nellascoltatore molto evidente. (Bandinu 2012)

I play with this element [the emphasis on corfuclosure]. It is like leavinga footprint of your own voice. And it is clearly audible, the listenersperceive it, and they ask you about it: What is that thing that you do at theend of the singing? One hears this release..., it is just like a recoil of thesound pressure. It is an effect that is clearly evident to the listener.

An analysis has been carried out on the three accompaniment voices of

three a tenorechoirs from different Sardinian villages, Orotelli, Orune andSiniscola (see fig. 2). The villages designations are written in the graphs

below as orot, orun and sini and the three parts of the choir arelabelled as bs (bassu), co (contra) and mb (mesu boghe). Thesingers voices were recorded in a recording studio as separate tracks.


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Microcreativity196

Fig. 2. On the left: map showing the distribution of a tenorechoirs in the villagesof Sardinia (the original map is taken from Pilosu 2012a: 29). On the right: thenine singers of the recordings, placed on the basis of their provenance and singingrole: bassu, contra, mesu boghe, referred to as BS, CO and MB. They areFrancesco Luigi Podda (BS), Pino Ortu (CO) and Massimiliano Pusceddu (MB),from Orotelli; Pietro Mula (BS), Peppinu Cidda (CO) and Piero Cidda (MB), fromOrune; Stefano Spanu (BS), Domenico Carta (CO) and Giovanni Mele (MB), from

Siniscola.

The analysis was carried out using the software Praat (Boersma andWeenink, 2011) on a corpus of 105 (35 closures x 3 voices) audiofragments identified and extracted on the basis of a two-step procedureconsisting firstly of a preliminary manual segmentation based on

perceptual criteria and secondly on the automatic detection of intensity fall(arbitrarily set at < 40 dB) as the end point of the extracted audio fragment(fig. 3).

SINISCOLA

ORUNE

OROTELLI


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Paolo Bravi 197

Fig. 3. The two phases of the segmentation and annotation of the corfosreleases.Each part of the accompaniment choir (bassu, contra, mesu boghe) was annotatedon a couple of tiers: in the upper one the segmentation was performed manually(the interval in this tier is labelled r); in the lower one the end boundary isreplaced via an automatic procedure based on the detection of the falling of theintensity curve below 40 dB (the interval in this tier is labelled r2). In thisexample, the part under observation is that of the contra.

3. AnalysisThe analysis took into consideration four acoustic features in the closureof the corfos, that is pitch, intensity, spectrum and duration, and thestatistics were obtained by means of the software R (RDCT 2012). Thetopic has also been discussed with some a tenoresingers. They are OmarBandinu, bassu of the tenore group Mialinu Pira from Bitti, DomenicoCarta and Luigi Carta, contrasfrom Siniscola, Stefano Frau, contraof thetenoregroup Osana from Orosei and the Cuncordu Vramentu of Fonni.The research, based on the integration of fieldwork and documents

analysis, shares the principles and method described and discussed inBravi, 2012.

3.1Pitch

In some singers, the pitch profile exhibits a characteristic high jump inthe voiced part of the corfu release. An analysis of this acoustic featurewas carried out by measuring the difference in semitones from the pitch

before the release and the maximum pitch in the release, as shown in fig.

4.


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Microcreativity198

Fig. 4. The measure of the high jump, a feature observable in many corfosreleases.

As figure 5 shows, the clearest difference in this case is regarding thebehavior of the bassosand those of the other two voices. The high-jumpis very strong in the bassos; particularly in two of them, and the pitch

jump usually exceeds the octave due to the release of the laryngealconstriction which causes the doubling of the period. As far as the voiceswhich do not exhibit period doubling are concerned, the contra ofSiniscola displays the highest pitch jumps, which correspond to a clear andstrong emphasis on the closure of the corfu, whereas no high-jump is

present in the mesu boghes.


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Paolo Bravi 199

Role of the singer

Semitones

-5

0

5

10

15

20

25

bs co mb

orot

bs co mb

orun

bs co mb

sini

Fig. 5. Distribution of the pitch jumps in the releases, per village and part.

Generally speaking, the high-jump in the release therefore seems tobe a characteristic of guttural voices, particularly strong in the bassos,andweaker or absent in the higher voices, the contras and the mesu boghes.

A second feature of the pitch profile in the release is its descent in itsfinal part, which has been measured as the difference (in semitones) fromthe maximum pitch level and the pitch level at the end of the release (seefig. 6). In this case, no clear trend appears as far as the different kinds ofvoice are concerned, whereas a strong lowering of the pitch in the final

part of the release seems to be an individual characteristic of the mesubogheof Orune (see fig. 7).


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Fig. 6. The measure of the pitch descent in the corfosreleases.

Role of the singer

Semitones

0

5

10

15

20

bs co mb

orot

bs co mb

orun

bs co mb

sini

Fig. 7. Distribution of the pitch descents in the corfosreleases, per village and part.

3.2 Intensity

As far as intensity is concerned, the presence or the absence of a hump inthe intensity curve1 of the releases is a feature which reveals either astrong or a smooth emphasis in the closure of the corfu(see fig. 8). In thiscase, the analysis shows that humps are common everywhere, but that theabsence of humps is less frequent in the bassos than in the other voices(fig. 9).


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Fig. 8. The intensity curve in the corfurelease may (or may not) show a hump,

i.e. may reach its maximum level after the release start point.

Fig. 9. Distribution of corfosreleases with and without humps in their intensity

curves, per part.

3.3 Spectrum

The emphasis on the closure of corfu sometimes occurs through theinsertion of a fricative section which precedes the final nasal release. Thisfriction is in some cases clearly visible in the spectrogram, whererelatively strong energy bands appear in the higher part of the spectrumabove 5 kHz (see fig. 10).

bs co mb

occ

orrences

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

presence of a hump

absence of a hump


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Fig. 10. An example of a fricative section at the beginning of a corfurelease. Therounded rectangle displays the presence of energy bands in the upper part of thespectrogram.

The perceptual relevance of the friction is related to both its strengthand its duration. For this reason, the analysis has taken into account thespectral evolution over time and was carried out via the measure of the

band energy difference (low band: 0-5 kHz, high band: 5-24 kHz) in fivesuccessive spectral slices2.

The difference is lower in the bassos than in the higher voices,particularly in the first spectra. This acoustic feature is related to a strongerfriction in the lowest voices (fig. 11, upper panel). At a keener level ofinvestigation, some differences appear between the three bass voices,

particularly between the bassuof Orotelli and that of Siniscola in the firstspectra (fig. 11, lower panel).


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Fig. 11. Distribution of energy bands (0-5 / 5-20 kHz) in five subsequent spectra

after the corfosreleases (time step = 0.02 s.). Upper panel: per poet; lower panel:

bassos, per village.

3.4Time

Some acoustic features of the release concern the time dimension. Two

factors have been evaluated in this regard: the overall duration of the

release and the delay of each voices release start in relation to the voice

which starts the release first. Release duration analysis partly provides

countertrend results compared to those observed so far. The bassos

release usually has a shorter duration than that of the other voices. As far

as the difference between choirs is concerned, durations are usually longer

in all three parts of the Siniscola choir than in the other choirs (see fig. 12,left panel). The delay of the release start shows different behaviors in the

three choirs. In the Orotelli choir, the voice which starts the closure first is

the mesu boghe; in the Orune choir it is the contra, and in the Siniscola

Role of the singer

Differenceofenergybands(0-5/

5-20kHz)

-50

-40

-30

-20

bs co mb

slice

bs co mb

slice

bs co mb

slice

bs co mb

slice

bs co mb

slice

Bassu

Difference

ofebergybands(0-5

/5-20

kHz)

-40

-35

-30

-25

-20

-15

orot orun sini

slice

orot orun sini

slice

orot orun sini

slice

orot orun sini

slice

orot orun sini

slice


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Microcreativity204

choir no clear difference between the three parts is present (see fig. 12,

right panel).

In this respect, the Orotelli choir seems to reflect an idea expressed bysome a tenoresingers, like those of the Cuncordu Vramentu of Fonni, whosay:

Deve uscire un unico suono da bassu e contra, non si deve distinguere tra

il basso e la contra. In poche parole, il suono deve essere unico. Invece la

mezza voce pu sganciarsi un po di pi perch guida il tenore e aiuta la

voce al tono anche La mezza voce guida il tenore, una seconda voce,

diciamo.(Interview with the Cuncordu Vramentu of Fonni, in Lutzu 2003)

Bassu and contra should make up one sound; one should not distinguishbetween bassu and contra. In other words, there should be one sound.

Instead, the mesu boghemay get away a little more because he leads the

tenore and helps the boghein the pitch as well The mesu bogheleads the

tenore, it is like a second boghe, say.

Instead, the Orune choir seems to share the idea (and the singing

behavior) maintained by two contrasof different generations of Siniscola,

Luigi and Domenico Carta, according to whom: [DC] Sa chi cumandat

sonande est sempre sa contra [LC] Certu! Est sa contra che cumandat,

su bassu si depet ponnere afatu a sa contra, ca sa contra iscurtat sa oche.[[DC] The one who is in command is always the contra [LC] Of course!

The one who commands is the contra, the bassushould follow the contra,

as the contra listens to the boghe.] (Domenico and Luigi Carta 2011)

Lastly, the behavior of the Siniscola choir, at least in the recording

analyzed here, seems to obey a third principle on the topic advocated by

Omar Bandinu, i.e. that there is no fixed voice with a lead role within the

accompaniment choir.

In questi casi, c una voce che anticipa le altre e quindi le guida []? -Mah, secondo me no. Secondo me qua vige la totale libert dei cantori,

non c una voce che in qualche modo d, come dire, il La, che guida le

altre nella produzione di questo espediente della voce.(Bandinu 2012)

In these cases, is there a voice which anticipates the others, and therefore

guides them? In my opinion there is not. To me the singers are completely

free here, there is no voice which somehow guides the others in the

production of this vocal device.


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Paolo Bravi 205

orot_bs

orot_co

orot_mb

orun_bs

orun_co

orun_mb

sini_bs

sini_co

sini_mb

0.20

0.25

0.30

0.35

0.40

0.45

0.50

0.55

DURATION

Time(s)

orot_bs

orot_co

orot_mb

orun_bs

orun_co

orun_mb

sini_bs

sini_co

sini_mb

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

0.25

START DELAY

Time(s)

Fig. 12. Left panel: distribution of release durations; right panel: delay of the

release start with respect to the voice which starts the release first.

4. Conclusion

Upon closer inspection of the emphasis of the closure of the corfos,

what is seemingly a minor characteristic of singing and is usually

neglected as a specific musical or expressive element in the vocal

accompaniment turned out to be an interesting trait of the performative

styles in a tenoresongs. A first ethnographic survey devoted to the topic

and the results of the analysis carried out on some of its acoustic features

allow some preliminary hypotheses on the whole matter.

First, there is a consistency, at least to a certain degree, in the

performances of each singer and sometimes of the choirs. The release

technique may be considered a part of the individual or collective style of

the accompaniment voices. As a feature shared within the choirs, anemphasised release may be considered a characteristic which can

distinguish different groups and different singing styles:

La /m/ noi la usiamo fra un corfue l'altro per non chiudere direttamente in

[a]. Invece di fare [a], fai [am] [] Noi indirizziamo dalla /a/ alla /m/,

quella una particolarit del modo di cantare nostro, del nostro tenore, per

indirizzare verso la chiusura (Frau 2011)


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We use /m/ between one corfuand another in order not to close directly in

[a]. Instead of doing [a], you do [am][]. We go from /a/ to /m/, this is a

peculiarity of our way of singing, of our tenore, for approaching the

closure

As an individual feature, the presence of the emphasis can be

unintentional, just a physiological side-effect of the release of the

laryngeal muscles, as Domenico Carta says:

Quello [lenfasi della chiusura del corfu] ti viene cos, non lu aches

apposta. Ti enet gai, dae su sfortzu chi aches, poi comente [finisce]: [m].

Ma no este unu difetu sicuramente cussu, este una cosa chi ti enit comente

finis de cantare che sa gula si serrat, e s'intendet, in su microfono Ma tudici che involontario? S, este involontariu. Poi, calincunu bi l'achet a

lu mantenere e no lu achet. Jeo mi essit a me, per esempiu, no est che lu

acu aposta, Bi nd'at chi l'achene a serrare bene, lu mantenene e no

s'intendet nudda.(Carta, Domenico 2011).

This [the emphasis on the corfuclosure] comes naturally, you dont do it

on purpose. It comes from the effort that you make, and when it [ends]:

[m]. But it certainly isnt a mistake, it is something that happens when you

finish singing and your throat seals, and you can hear it through the

microphone But are you saying that it is not done deliberately? Yes, itis involuntary. Then somebody manages to hold it back and doesnt do it.

I it happens to me, for example, its not that I do it on purpose. There are

people who manage to close well, who keep it closed, and one cannot hear

anything.

In other cases, self-assertion may play an important role in choosing

whether to emphasize the corfu closure or not, or how to do it, as there are

different ways to do it in terms of their acoustic features. Vocal releases

show performers individuality as other melodic, timbral or rhythmic traits

do. As Omar Bandinu says: ha un peso rilevante anche la propria auto-affermazione [che si realizza] attraverso questa caratterizzazione finale

[self-assertion [which can be obtained] by means of this characterization in

the final part has significant weight too]. (Bandinu 2012).

Second, the lower voices usually exhibit a more pronounced emphasis on

the closure. The release of laryngeal tension can be emphasised in a

stronger way in these kinds of voice than in modal ones.


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Paolo Bravi 207

Third, the emphasis on the closure may be a way to stress the rhythmicdimension of the song, to bring attention to the strength of the choir

accompaniment, to enhance the compactness of the ensemble and, aspointed out by Omar Bandinu, to make a contribution to the emotional

efficacy of the song. [lenfasi nella chiusura del corfu] serve anche

per caricare proprio emotivamente il canto, anche per spingere di pi il

solista a dare una maggiore, come dire, carica emotiva al canto. [

[emphasis on corfuclosure] also serves to charge the singing emotionally,

and to give the soloist a lift to provide a stronger emotional charge to the

song.] (Bandinu 2012)In oral and traditional musical genres like the a tenore song, where

many primary stylistic features are (pre-)defined by specific and well-

known village fashions, the customization of the song is often carried by

the singers by means of low-level variations of their village model. Thesingers creativity is usually expressed not in terms of the creation of

completely new melodies or the invention of rhythmic and harmonic

innovative structures, but as small and progressive changes of what each

singer has learned by listening to and practicing with others, normally in

the first years of his life. Existing repertories are subjected to a moderateelaboration as far as individual experiences are concerned and to a slow

evolution as far as diachronic change is concerned.

Oral creativity may be seen best, in cases like this, through a

microscope, be it a careful listening or a fine-grained analysis. There is

no genius, no chosen soul, no revolutionary eccentric or hypersensitive

talent at work here, only honest, gifted, pernickety craftsmen of their ownvoices. Their vocal creations have no grandeur, no vanity, no vulgarity, no

blatant appearance. I think that we may refer to them as microcreativity:

something which can be discovered and, if present, appreciated through

work, experience and practice.


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Microcreativity208

In particular, the treatment of the closure of the corfosin the a tenore

song is, in terms of its effect, no more than an acoustic device: a modest

epithetic levis immutatioof the standard corfu. In a way, it is close to thezero-degree of microcreativity. And, of course, it is easy to fail torecognize any creativity in it altogether, as we are the sons and daughters

of a writing-based culture and we are proneconsciously or inadvertently

to disregard or at least underestimate aspects of the performative style

which do not fit into our familiar staff notation.

I am aware of the potential damage that the (mis-)use of the word

microcreativity may cause. The concept of microcreativity is logically

opposed to that of macrocreativity. Based on that, the concept of

microcreativity might be considered as the weak side of creativity, as a

sort of poor or diminished form of it, according to the common view. In

recent times, the virtues and miracles of microbiology, minimalist art and

nanotechnologies might have changed the usual understanding of theimplications of the two prefixes micro and macro which equate them

with low- and high value. Perhaps they have even set a new benchmark in

this regard, and have started to form a different sensibility. But, to be sure

not to be misunderstood, I prefer to state explicitly that in my view

creativity is also present in this case, and that we have to think of it as

creativity in its own right.

References

Bandinu, Omar. 2012. Interview with Paolo Bravi. Cagliari, Sardinia,

Italy. 17 April.

Bailly, Lucie and Natalie Henrich, Xavier Pelorson. 2010. Vocal fold and

ventricular fold vibration in period-doubling phonation: Physiological

description and aerodynamic modeling. Journal of the Acoustical

Society of America. Vol. 127(5).3212-3222.

http://asadl.org/jasa/search?sortby=newestdate&q=j+acoust+soc+am.+vol+127+%285%29&faceted=faceted&searchzone=1&alias=/jasa&dis

playid=ASA&key=JASMAN&conditions=j+acoust+soc+am.+vol+127+%285%29article&page=8.

Boersma, Paul, and David Weenink. 2011. Praat: doing phonetics by

computer.http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/.

Bravi, Paolo. 2012. "The practice of ornamentation in the multipart vocal

music of Southern Sardinia. A bifocal perspective in ethnomusicological

analysis." In Multipart music: a specific mode of musical thinking,

expressive behaviour and sound, a cura di Ignazio Macchiarella, 467-490. Udine: Nota, 2012.


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Paolo Bravi 209

Carta, Domenico and Luigi Carta. 2011. Interview with Paolo Bravi.

Siniscola, Sardinia, Italy. 22 July.

Casu, Francesco and Marco Lutzu. 2012-[c.s.].Enciclopedia della musicasarda. Voll. 1-16.Cagliari: Unione Sarda.Frau, Stefano. 2011. Interview with Paolo Bravi. Orosei, Sardinia, Italy.

24 September.

Lutzu, Marco. 2003. Tenores. Vol. Suoni di un'isola, vol. 1. CD-Rom.

Cagliari: Live Studio.

Pilosu, Sebastiano. 2012a.Enciclopedia della musica sarda. Vol. 1: Canto

a tenore.Casu, Francesco and Marco Lutzu, eds. Cagliari: L'Unione

Sarda.

. 2012b.Enciclopedia della musica sarda. Vol. 2: Canto a tenore.Casu,

Francesco and Marco Lutzu, eds. Cagliari: L'Unione Sarda.

RDCT (R Development Core Team). 2012. R: A Language and

Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation forStatistical Computing. URL: http://www.R-project.org.

Notes

1Parameters used for the intensity measure in Praat are the following: pitch floor =

40 Hz; time step = 0.01 sec.2Spectral analyses were carried out by means of the relevant Praat functions, with

the following parameters: window length = 0.005; maxfreq = 24000; time step =

0.02; window shape: Gaussian.

bravi, paolo (2013) "microcreativity. vocal releases in cauda as stylistic marks in the sardinian a...

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