Musical scales in Australian aboriginal songs: Structure and social implications (didjeridu, folksongs) [microform]
- Bib ID:
- 3287519
- Format:
- Book and Microform
- Author:
- Lauridsen, Jan
- Description:
- 140 p.
- Summary:
-
The objectives of this research fall into two distinct categories of inquiry, reflected by the division of the dissertation into two sections. The first section is an attempt to expose underlying patterns in the scales of traditional Australian Aboriginal music and to test these findings against those of earlier studies. Special attention is given to the possible effects of an accompanying pitched instrument on scale structure. The scales collected for this study come from recordings of 146 Aboriginal songs. The songs originate in thirty-two Aboriginal groups living at various locations in the northern half of the Australian continent. From these songs the scales are extracted through the use of a pitch-measurement device which measures the frequency of a given pitch and its cumulative duration in a song.
The analysis of the scales is based on statistical frequencies of scalar intervals in the song sample and the relative prominence of intervals, which is measured by cumulative duration. Several significant trends are revealed, among them, the predominance of microtones and the 'neutral' third in Aboriginal music, and a slight tendency for vocal pitches to correspond to harmonics of the didjeridu (aerophone) fundamental. In the second section of this study, the relationship between musical scales and Aboriginal social grouping is explored. The underlying hypothesis of this inquiry is that music functions in societies as an agent of social distinction. The extent to which an abstract musical trait, such as a scale, participates in this group-distinguishing activity is tested by measuring the degree of similarity among the scales in individual Aboriginal social groups and comparing this with measurements of between-group similarity of scales.
Here, the particular characteristics of the scales are not as crucial as the degree of similarity or dissimilarity between them, which is measured by the percentage of common scale degrees. Again, the methods of analysis are statistical, aimed at revealing broad, general trends in the data. The social factors found to be the most correlated with consistent scale structure are clan membership and language group.
- Notes:
-
- (UnM)AAI8419519
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-05, Section: A, page: 1236.
- Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Maryland College Park, 1983.
- Reproduction:
- Microfiche. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International.
- Subject:
- Music
- Other authors/contributors:
- University of Maryland College Park
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Unpublished
- Creation date:
- 1983
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