Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:42:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 parte1.pdf: 1866723 bytes, checksum: 115126c4e58d138bd6eb992ca2fa90a2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-06-12 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / It is well known that there is no linguistic uniformity in the Portuguese spoken in Brazil. The Northeastern region of the country, for instance, is large and there is still lack of knowledge about its dialectal aspects, especially those related to intonation. In fact, there are still few research studies on dialectal prosody in our country. The aim was to describe the behavior of the fundamental frequency (F0), acoustic parameter responsible for the perception of the pitch, in declarative and interrogative sentences in the dialects of Salvador, Recife, João Pessoa, Fortaleza and São Luís. It is a descriptive and comparative research study based on the methodological procedures of Project AMPER. Disjunctive and Wh-questions, as well as its correspondent declaratives, were added to the original AMPER Corpus, which is made of declarative sentences and yes-no questions. The elicitation of sentences was achieved through visual stimuli which conducted the informant to produce the utterance as naturally as possible, avoiding the prosodic marks present when the speaker is reading. Four informants were contacted, in each city, with the following features: male-female (homogeneous distribution), over 30 years old, basic and superior education. The recording was made by a digital recorder Microtack II plugged into a directional microphone Samson C02. For the melodic contours (F0) analysis the software Praat was used. The results show that the declarative intonation does not offer a substantial difference among the cities; the yes-no questions, on the other hand, basically have two patterns, depending on the pause of the utterance: the stressed syllable and the post-stressed syllable. Three different patterns were observed as for the intonation of disjunctive questions, with relevant differences between those in São Luis-Fortaleza from those in Recife-João Pessoa and Salvador. Finally, as for Wh-questions, a more relevant variation was observed: four different patterns, one to each city, except for Recife and João Pessoa, which share the same pattern. / É fato indiscutível que, no português falado no Brasil, não há uma uniformidade linguística. A região Nordeste é imensa, assim como o é o desconhecimento sobre seus aspectos dialetais, sobretudo no que diz respeito à entoação. Os estudos, em nosso país, sobre prosódia dialetal ainda são escassos. Este estudo teve como objetivo descrever o comportamento da frequência fundamental (F0), parâmetro acústico responsável pela percepção das modulações melódicas, em frases assertivas e interrogativas, nos falares de Salvador, Recife, João Pessoa, Fortaleza e São Luís. Trata-se de um trabalho de cunho descritivo e comparativo, baseado nos procedimentos metodológicos do Projeto Internacional AMPER. Ao corpus do AMPER, constituído de frases assertivas e interrogativas (questão total), foram acrescentadas frases interrogativas parciais e disjuntivas, assim como as asserções correspondentes. A evocação das frases é feita a partir de estímulos visuais, que devem conduzir o informante a produzir o enunciado desejado da forma o mais natural possível, evitando-se, assim, as marcas prosódicas características da leitura. Por capital, participaram quatro (04) informantes de ambos os sexos (distribuição homogênea), com idades acima de 30 anos, com escolaridade básica e com nível superior. As gravações foram feitas por meio de um gravador digital Microtrack II, acoplado a um microfone direcional Samson CO2. Para a análise dos contornos melódicos, foi utilizado o programa Praat. Os resultados mostram que, ao contrário da entoação assertiva, que não oferece uma variação notável entre as cidades, a da questão total assume basicamente dois padrões, a depender de o ponto no final do enunciado apresentar um nível melódico mais elevado: a tônica ou a pós-tônica. A entoação da questão disjuntiva assume três padrões, diferenciando as áreas de São Luís-Fortaleza das de João Pessoa-Recife e da de Salvador. Por fim, na questão parcial, observa-se uma variação ainda maior, havendo quatro padrões, um para cada cidade, exceto Recife e João Pessoa, que compartilham um mesmo padrão.

Qu'est-ce que la mélodie ? Si cette question délicate a animé de nombreux débats esthétiques du XVIIe siècle au début du XXe siècle, peu de spécialistes se sont aujourd'hui risqués à une étude de la mélodie, appliquée au répertoire contemporain. Parfois considérée comme illégitime, voire archaïque après 1945, la mélodie n'a pourtant que provisoirement disparu de l'espace musical et non sans laisser quelques scories riches de sens. Ce travail tente justement d'éclairer les enjeux et les différentes mutations de la mélodie, synthétisées à travers trois directions poursuivies par les compositeurs : premièrement, les résistances, illustrant la promotion d'un mélos généreux et prépondérant, qu'il soit ou non marqué par le néoclassicisme ; deuxièmement, les ruptures, nourries par le pointillisme sériel, puis par la dissolution du degré dans la masse sonore et par la recherche d'une fusion entre harmonie et timbre, d'où la mélodie ne subsiste que par bribes éparses ; troisièmement, les résurgences, caractérisées après 1960 par un dépassement de la modernité radicale et de ses prescriptions anti-mélodiques, allant parfois jusqu'à la citation ou recherchant une forme de communication nouvelle, pouvant être en lien avec l'expression du sacré. / What is melody? Despite the fact that this subtle question was largely debated upon from 17th to early 20th century from an aesthetic viewpoint, few specialists nowadays dare to study melody in contemporary repertoire. Sometimes regarded as illegitimate or even archaic after 1945, melody has only temporarily vanished from the musical scene, leaving some meaningful residues. This study aims at highlighting what is at stake in the diverse mutations of melody along three directions followed by composers : firstly, resistances exemplifying the promotion of a generous melos, whether it be marked by neoclassicism or not ; secondly, breaks nourished by punctual music, and then by the dissolution of degree in the sound mass and by the quest for a fusion between harmony and timbre, from which melody only survives through scattered fragments ; thirdly, resurgences characterized, after 1960, by an overcoming of radical modernity and its anti-melodic prescriptions, and sometimes taking the form of a quotation or looking for a new way of communication, which can be related to the expression of the sacred.

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De récentes découvertes sur le rôle du détail phonétique ont inspiré des modèles prosodiques basés sur une approche exemplariste. Au travers de quatre expériences portant sur la production et la perception du détail mélodique et temporel dans la variété napolitaine de l'italien, nous montrons que la notion de détail prosodique n'est pas non plus incompatible avec une approche abstractionniste. Plus particulièrement, nous suggérons que l'exploration du détail prosodique permettrait de mieux encadrer les rapports entre substance phonétique et formes phonologiques, en éclairant ainsi comment les fonctions pragmatiques sont véhiculée par la prosodie. / Recent findings on phonetic detail have been taken as supporting exemplar-based approaches to prosody. Through four experiments on both production and perception of both melodic and temporal detail in Neapolitan Italian, we show that prosodic detail is not incompatible with abstractionist approaches either. Specifically, we suggest that the exploration of prosodic detail leads to a refined understanding of the relationships between the richly specified and continuous varying phonetic information on one side, and coarse phonologically structured contrasts on the other, thus offering in-sights on how pragmatic information is conveyed by prosody.

The aim of this study is to gain insight into how experienced children’s choir conductors work with the development of voices in the elementary school age. The work primarily focuses on aspects of vocal production such as finding and matching pitch, intonation, tone quality, resonance and falsetto singing. Because of the inherent complex nature of singing, the work also to some extent covers other aspects of choir singing such as breath, posture and organisation. Three experienced Swedish choir directors were interviewed with a qualitative method. The results show that the directors’ methods were similar, emphasizing good voice quality of the director, high registry singing, and enhancing listening skills over detailed work with resonance and tone quality. The results also show that the choir directors were coherent with and to some extent relied on the same method literature that forms the backbone of this work. This study brings to light what methods are used by todays children’s choir directors and further underscores the relevance of existing literature. / Uppsatsens syfte är att ge inblick i hur erfarna körledare arbetar med röstutveckling hos barn i lågstadieåldern. De huvudsakliga områden som undersöks är körledarnas arbete med tonträffning, intonation, tonkvalitet, resonans och huvudklang. På grund av körsångens komplexa natur avhandlar arbetet även i viss mån övriga aspekter såsom andning, hållning och organisering av kören. Uppsatsen bygger på material från tre kvalitativa intervjuer med erfarna körledare. Resultatet visar att de tre körledarna använder sig av likartade metoder. Samtliga betonar vikten av att körledaren själv har en god röstkvalitet, att körsången sker i ett högt register anpassat till barnens röster och att körundervisningen bör fokusera på gehörsutveckling snarare än detaljarbete med resonans och tonkvalitet. Resultatet visar även att körledarnas metoder till stor del överensstämde med och i viss mån även utgick ifrån de källor som tas upp i uppsatsens litteraturkapitel. Uppsatsen visar på vilka metoder som används av erfarna barnkörledare och understryker även relevansen av den befintliga litteraturen i ämnet.

Ce travail a trois objectifs principaux. Tout d’abord, contribuer à l’étude du système rythmique des langues et des variétés dialectales à travers l’analyse du rythme de l’anglais parlé au pays de Galles et de la langue galloise en utilisant comme point de comparaison l’anglais dit standard. Puis, démontrer qu’il existe un allongement final bien plus marqué en gallois et en anglais gallois (bilingues & monolingues) qu’en anglais standard. Et enfin, prouver que les résultats obtenus lors de cette étude sont étroitement liés à l’influence majoritaire de la langue galloise sur celle des autres variétés d’anglais présentes dans ce pays. Dans cette optique, nous avons, dans un premier temps, élargi la base de données Eurom I et nous avons ensuite mené différents tests de perception et études statistiques. Il en ressort que la langue galloise est effectivement le substrat principal de l’anglais parlé au pays de Galles, que ce soit chez les gallois bilingues ou monolingues (personnes résidant au pays de Galles ne parlant qu’anglais). En effet, la longueur de l’allongement en syllabe finale inaccentuée va en décroissant du gallois à l’anglais standard. Cependant, étant donné l’impossibilité de catégoriser de façon précise le rythme du gallois et de l’anglais gallois en tenant compte de tous les paramètres métriques, il est plus difficile d’affirmer de façon catégorique que la langue galloise joue un rôle prépondérant sur ces derniers. / This thesis has three main objectives. First of all, to contribute to the study of the rhythmical system of languages and dialectal varieties through the analysis of rhythms in Welsh English and Welsh, using Standard English as a focal comparative element; then, to demonstrate that the final lengthening is much more notable in Welsh and in Welsh English (bilinguals and monolinguals) than in standard English; finally, to prove that this study’s results are tightly intertwined with the influence of the Welsh language, which is greater than that other English accents present in this country. For that purpose, we have first widened the Eurom 1 database and then carried out various perception tests and statistical analysis. The results show that the Welsh language is the substratum of the English spoken in Wales, as much for bilinguals as for monolinguals (residents of the country speaking only English). Indeed, the length of the final unstressed syllable decreases from Welsh to Standard English. However, as it is impossible to classify with precision the rhythm of Welsh and Welsh English taking into account all the metrics, it is more difficult to establish with certainty whether the Welsh language has a major influence on the latter.

Jag har länge tyckt att soundet från en stråke är häftigt. Det finns inspelningar med jazzstråk, men det är inte jättevanligt och jag undrade varför. Är det för att det finns för många svårigheter att hantera med stråken? Eller var det kanske så att det fanns massor med möjligheter som inte många tog vara på? Syftet i mitt arbete har varit att ta reda på vad det finns för möjligheter och svårigheter med att spela stråke på kontrabas i jazzmusik. I arbetsprocessen har jag valt ut låtar och spelat in dessa låtar med ett band bestående av trummor, el-gitarr, tenor saxofon och viola. Sedan har jag skickat låtarna till verksamma stråkbassister så att de kan kommentera och ge tips. Utifrån kommentarerna, tipsen och min egna analys av låtarna har jag gjort övningar som har gjort att jag på bättre sätt har kunnat ta vara på möjligheterna och hantera svårigheterna. De tankar jag hade i början av arbetet angående vad som skulle vara möjligheterna med stråken och vad som skulle vara svårigheterna har visat sig i vissa fall inte stämma alls, i vissa fall stämma delvis och i vissa fall stämde de helt. Ett exempel är att jag tänkte i början av arbetet att få till bra rytmer skulle vara en svårighet, dock visade sig rytmer även vara en möjlighet då man kan ha större rytmisk variation med stråken än med fingrarna eftersom man kan hålla ut en ton längre med stråken. / For a long time I have been thinking that the sound of a bowed tone is cool. There are recordings of music with jazz bowing, but it is not very common and I wondered why. Is it because there are too many difficulties with bowplaying? Or are there a lot of opportunities that only a few bass players take advantage of? The aim of my thesis is to figure out what the difficulties and the opportunities with bow playing on the double bass are in jazz music.  In my research process I have chosen a couple of songs, rehearsed and recorded them with a band including drums, guitar, tenor saxophone and viola. After each recording session, I sended the recordings to a couple of active bow playing bass musicians, which answered with comments and advices.  Based on the advices and my own analysis of the songs, I did exercises that taught me how to handle the difficulties and how to fully use the opportunities with bow playing in jazz music.  In the beginning of the project I had some thoughts about what the opportunities and difficulties would be. Some of the thoughts came out to be, in some cases incorrect, in some cases partly correct and in some cases fully correct.  An example is that, beginning my research I thought that playing rhythms with a bow would be difficult, but as it turned out, playing rhythms could also be an opportunity. I then could use more versatile rhythms than with my finger, since the bow allows me to hold a tone for a longer time.

The purpose of the study was to compare two instructional methodologies designed to improve the intonation accuracy of seventh grade violin and viola instrumentalists. The collection of data was in regard to (1) instructional methodology: aural and aural/visual, (2) performance tasks: A, B, and C; (3) individual pitches (seven from each of the music tasks), and (4) differences between instrument groups: violin and viola. Sixty-eight seventh grade string students from three string classes of two middle schools were randomly assigned to two experimental groups: (a) aural and (b) aural/visual. The instructional period was implemented daily in ten-minute sessions during twenty days by the orchestra instructors of each school. A pretest-posttest format was used to determine if there were any changes in the subjects' intonation accuracy from prior to after the instructional phase was implemented, and if these changes could be attributed to any of the methodologies. The testing material used on both testing sessions included three performance tasks composed of seven notes each. Subjects were recorded on both testing occasions. The data were the scores of absolute pitch deviation, measured in cents from equal temperament, from the pre- and postest; these were treated with analysis of variance. The ANOVA on the posttest scores indicated a non-significant difference between the instructional methodologies in their effectiveness to improve the subjects' ability to play in tune.

Speech technologies such as text-to-speech synthesis (TTS) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) have recently generated much interest in the developed world as a user-interface medium to smartphones [1, 2]. However, it is also recognised that these technologies may potentially have a positive impact on the lives of those in the developing world, especially in Africa, by presenting an important medium for access to information where illiteracy and a lack of infrastructure play a limiting role [3, 4, 5, 6]. While these technologies continually experience important advances that keep extending their applicability to new and under-resourced languages, one particular area in need of further development is speech synthesis of African tone languages [7, 8]. The main objective of this work is acoustic modelling and synthesis of tone for an African tone,language: Yorùbá. We present an empirical investigation to establish the acoustic properties of tone in Yorùbá, and to evaluate resulting models integrated into a Hidden Markov model-based (HMMbased) TTS system. We show that in Yorùbá, which is considered a register tone language, the realisation of tone is not solely determined by pitch levels, but also inter-syllable and intra-syllable pitch dynamics. Furthermore, our experimental results indicate that utterance-wide pitch patterns are not only a result of cumulative local pitch changes (terracing), but do contain a significant gradual declination component. Lastly, models based on inter- and intra-syllable pitch dynamics using underlying linear pitch targets are shown to be relatively efficient and perceptually preferable to the current standard approach in statistical parametric speech synthesis employing HMM pitch models based on context-dependent phones. These findings support the applicability of the proposed models in under-resourced conditions. / PhD (Information Technology), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Speech technologies such as text-to-speech synthesis (TTS) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) have recently generated much interest in the developed world as a user-interface medium to smartphones [1, 2]. However, it is also recognised that these technologies may potentially have a positive impact on the lives of those in the developing world, especially in Africa, by presenting an important medium for access to information where illiteracy and a lack of infrastructure play a limiting role [3, 4, 5, 6]. While these technologies continually experience important advances that keep extending their applicability to new and under-resourced languages, one particular area in need of further development is speech synthesis of African tone languages [7, 8]. The main objective of this work is acoustic modelling and synthesis of tone for an African tone,language: Yorùbá. We present an empirical investigation to establish the acoustic properties of tone in Yorùbá, and to evaluate resulting models integrated into a Hidden Markov model-based (HMMbased) TTS system. We show that in Yorùbá, which is considered a register tone language, the realisation of tone is not solely determined by pitch levels, but also inter-syllable and intra-syllable pitch dynamics. Furthermore, our experimental results indicate that utterance-wide pitch patterns are not only a result of cumulative local pitch changes (terracing), but do contain a significant gradual declination component. Lastly, models based on inter- and intra-syllable pitch dynamics using underlying linear pitch targets are shown to be relatively efficient and perceptually preferable to the current standard approach in statistical parametric speech synthesis employing HMM pitch models based on context-dependent phones. These findings support the applicability of the proposed models in under-resourced conditions. / PhD (Information Technology), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014