Melody in poems and songs: Fundamental statistical properties predict aesthetic evaluation.

Abstract

Since antiquity, the concept of melody has been related not only to music, but also to language, specifically poetic language. However, while melodic properties of music were already mathematically defined more than 2,000 years ago, melodic properties of poems have remained fairly elusive to date. Proceeding from the assumption that fundamental melodic properties should in both domains be measurable in terms of recurrent time series of pitch and duration values, we administered two statistical measures-(a) autocorrelation coefficients and (b) spectral exponents-that both allow to quantify the relevant degrees of recurrence for recited poems and their sung versions alike. In a naturalistic concert event, 11 poems were recited, their musical settings sung, and aesthetically evaluative as well as emotion ratings collected from the audience. Correlating the autocorrelation coefficients and the spectral exponents with the subjective ratings revealed that the two acoustic measures chosen are predictive, to different strengths and with regard to different aspects, of the subjectively perceived melodiousness for both songs and poems. This approach to melody in songs and poems may also open new venues for empirically comparing melodic properties of speech and music beyond poetry.

Comparative Analysis of Preference in Contemporary and Earlier Texts Using Entropy Measures

“…The program of computational textual aesthetics has been heavily influenced by relevant studies from other domains. For example, statistical properties of (time) series have been analysed for music [ 31 ], poetry [ 49 ], and even bird song [ 50 ]. Measures such as autocorrelation, variability, surprise and predictability have also been used to predict musical preferences in humans [ 30 , 51 ].…”

Guest editor's introduction April 2023.

“…When considering the role that stimulus features play in aesthetic judgments, it is first important to touch on the different levels that the word “feature” can denote. As shown in Scharinger et al, 2023, features can mean low-level acoustic features. Alternatively, the term “feature” has also been used to refer to subjective ratings of perceptual features (i.e., loudness, roughness), or even ratings of higher-level features such as the emotional qualities of a piece of music.…”

“…The third and final live concert study focuses on similarities (and differences) between songs and poems experienced during a live concert (Scharinger et al, 2023). In this study, audience members attended a concert in which a series of poems were both recited orally and sung with a piano accompaniment.…”

The role of imagery and emotion in the aesthetic appeal of music, poetry, and paintings.

“…While empirical aesthetics has traditionally focused on visual stimuli, the field has progressed in recent years as researchers have begun investigating the subjective experience of artistic products in many different sensory and creative domains. For example, recent work has explored the aesthetic experience of artistic products such as architecture (Dai et al, 2022; Skov et al, 2022), dance (Calvo-Merino, 2021; Monroy et al, 2022), films (Muth et al, 2015), music (Brattico & Pearce, 2013; Omigie et al, 2021), and poetry (Kraxenberger & Menninghaus, 2017; Scharinger et al, 2023). Much of this work has focused on the features driving aesthetic judgments of these various types of art.…”

“…Perhaps due to their similarities in terms of temporal evolution and rhythmic properties, poetry and music are two domains that have previously been compared. For example, Scharinger et al (2023) had audience members rate their experience of songs and poems heard at a performance. Their results indicated that perceived (i.e., subjective) melodiousness predicted aesthetic appeal of both poems and songs (Scharinger et al, 2023).…”