MUSICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MUSICIANS SYLLABLE CHOICE IN IMPROVISED NONSENSE TEXT SINGING - A PRELIMINARY-STUDY

When informally singing memorized instrumental or vocal themes, we ten d to invent nonsense texts, e.g. duda duda dudaa. This article present s a first attempt to test the assumption that in this type of singing the choice of syllables is guided by certain principles which reflect musical structure. In one experiment, 11 members of a professional orc hestra sang 6 melodical excerpts, and their choice of syllables was an alyzed. With regard to the phonetic properties, this choice showed a c ertain coherence. In a second experiment, one of the subjects showed b y articulatory markings such as slurs, dots and dashes his preferred p erformance of the same 6 excerpts. Comparisons with his syllable choic e suggested that the syllables are musically meaningful. In a third ex periment, this subject's performance suggestions were compared with th e occurrence of micropauses in rule-generated performances of the same 6 excerpts; the result suggested that the phonetic characteristics of the syllables in this kind of singing are used for conveying informat ion about grouping.