Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Martha Ulhôa's essay on musical prosody in Brazilian popular song develops the theoretical concept of métrica derramada, which I have translated as "fluid meter."Drawing in part on the work of her musicological forebear Mário de Andrade (also represented in this special issue) and contemporary Luiz Tatit, Ulhôa considers how speech timing, vowel "tensity," and other factors crucial to expressive speech influence sung musical melody, resulting in a musical structuring that is essentially malleable rather than produced by expressive stretchings of an underlying stable, isochronous grid.To illustrate, Ulhôa considers passages from a recording by the luminary Brazilian singer Elis Regina, suggesting how a number of musical parameters (not just timing) work together as an expressive whole, all animated in large part by the way the singer interprets the text.
Source: Music Theory Online
DOI: 10.30535/mto.30.4.15
Author: Chris Stover
Institution: Griffith University
Language: English
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4409016790