An Association between Breaking Voice and Grief-related Lyrics in Country Music

Thirty-one instances of breaking voice were identified in recordings of Country songs. Song lyrics were rated by independent judges for grief-related content in both breaking-voice songs and matched control songs. Judges compared pairs of lyrics for target and control songs at four context sizes: en...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Brandon Paul, David Huron
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: The Ohio State University Libraries 2010-08-01
Series:Empirical Musicology Review
Subjects:
Online Access:https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/46747
Description
Summary:Thirty-one instances of breaking voice were identified in recordings of Country songs. Song lyrics were rated by independent judges for grief-related content in both breaking-voice songs and matched control songs. Judges compared pairs of lyrics for target and control songs at four context sizes: entire sets of lyrics, single stanzas, isolated lines, and individual words where the breaking voice occurs. An association was found between instances of breaking voice and grief-related content for individual words but not for the larger lyrical contexts. The results are consistent with the idea that breaking voice provides an affective cue conveying, evoking or highlighting grief.
ISSN:1559-5749