Computational lyricology: Quantitative approaches to understanding song lyrics and their interpretations

Recently, music complexity has drawn attention from researchers in the Music Information Retrieval (MIR) area. In particular, computational methods to measure music complexity have been studied to provide better music services in large-scale music digital libraries. However, the majority of music complexity research has focused on audio-related facets of music, while song lyrics have been rarely considered. Based on the observation that most popular songs contain lyrics, whose different levels of complexity contribute to the overall music complexity, this dissertation research investigates song lyric complexity and how it might be measured computationally. In a broad sense, lyric complexity comes from two aspects of text complexity--quantitative and qualitative dimensions--that have a complementary relationship. For a comprehensive understanding of lyric complexity, this study explores both dimensions. First, for the quantitative dimensions, such as word frequency and word length, refer to those that can be measured efficiently using computer programs. Among them, this study examines the concreteness of song lyrics using trend analysis. Second, on the contrary to the quantitative dimensions, the qualitative dimensions refer to a deeper level of lyric complexity that requires attentive readers' comprehension and external knowledge. However, it is challenging to collect a large-scale qualitative analysis of lyric complexity due to the resource constraints. To this end, this dissertation introduces user-generated interpretations of song lyrics that are abundant on the web as a proxy for assessing the qualitative dimensions of lyric complexity. To be specific, this study first examines whether the user-generated data provide quality topic information, and then proposes a Lyric Topic Diversity Score (LTDS), a lyric complexity metric based on the diversity of the topics found in users' interpretations. The assumption behind this approach is that complex song lyrics tend to provoke diverse user interpretations due to their properties, such as ambiguous meanings, historical context, the author's intention, and so on. The first findings of this study include that concreteness of popular song lyrics fell from the middle of the 1960s until the 1990s and rose after that. The advent of Hip-Hop/Rap and the number of words in song lyrics are highly correlated with the rise in concreteness after the early 1990s. Second, interpretations are a good input source for automatic topic detection algorithms. Third, the interpretation-based lyric complexity metric looks promising because it is correlated with Lexical Novelty Scores (LNS), the only previously developed lyric complexity measure. Overall, this work expands the scope of music complexity by focusing on relatively unexplored data, song lyrics. Moreover, these findings suggest that any potential analysis and application on any objects can benefit from this kind of auxiliary data, which is in the form of user comments

Popular music lyrics and musicians’ gender over time: A computational approach

The present study investigated how the gender distribution of the United Kingdom’s most popular artists has changed over time and the extent to which these changes might relate to popular music lyrics. Using data mining and machine learning techniques, we analyzed all songs that reached the UK weekly top 5 sales charts from 1960 to 2015 (4,222 songs). DICTION software facilitated a computerized analysis of the lyrics, measuring a total of 36 lyrical variables per song. Results showed a significant inequality in gender representation on the charts. However, the presence of female musicians increased significantly over the time span. The most critical inflection points leading to changes in the prevalence of female musicians were in 1968, 1976, and 1984. Linear mixed-effect models showed that the total number of words and the use of self-reference in popular music lyrics changed significantly as a function of musicians’ gender distribution over time, and particularly around the three critical inflection points identified. Irrespective of gender, there was a significant trend toward increasing repetition in the lyrics over time. Results are discussed in terms of the potential advantages of using machine learning techniques to study naturalistic singles sales charts data

Popular music lyrics and musicians’ gender over time: a computational approach

The present study investigated how the gender distribution of the United Kingdom’s most popular artists has changed over time and the extent to which these changes might relate to popular music lyrics. Using data mining and machine learning techniques, we analyzed all songs that reached the UK weekly top 5 sales charts from 1960 to 2015 (4,222 songs). DICTION software facilitated a computerized analysis of the lyrics, measuring a total of 36 lyrical variables per song. Results showed a significant inequality in gender representation on the charts. However, the presence of female musicians increased significantly over the time span. The most critical inflection points leading to changes in the prevalence of female musicians were in 1968, 1976, and 1984. Linear mixed-effect models showed that the total number of words and the use of self-reference in popular music lyrics changed significantly as a function of musicians’ gender distribution over time, and particularly around the three critical inflection points identified. Irrespective of gender, there was a significant trend toward increasing repetition in the lyrics over time. Results are discussed in terms of the potential advantages of using machine learning techniques to study naturalistic singles sales charts data

CARETTA, Álvaro Antônio. Estudo dialógico-discursivo da canção popular brasileira [Dialogic-Discursive Study of Brazilian Popular Song]. São Paulo: Annablume, Fapesp, 2013. 217 p.

Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP)UNIFESPSciEL

Musical Mnemonic Devices or Method of Loci: Which Promotes Higher Recall of Concrete and Abstract Words?

Mnemonic devices are excellent learning tools to aid in the recall of information. Literature has shown that musical mnemonic devices and the method of loci are two particularly useful mnemonic devices. The literature has also shown that there seems to be some discrepancy as to which one aids in the higher recall of information. This study investigated which learning device— musical mnemonic devices, the method of loci, or rote memorization— promotes a higher recollection of concrete or abstract words after immediate and 5 min recall tasks. The study consisted of 86 participants who were Central Washington University students, ages 18 to 59 years old. The participants were randomly assigned to one of six conditions: the musical mnemonic device condition with concrete words, the musical mnemonic device condition with abstract words, the method of loci with concrete words, the method of loci with abstract words, rote memorization with concrete words or rote memorization with abstract words. The researcher hypothesized that 1) method of loci using concrete words during the immediate recall will result in more words recalled compared to other methods of memorization for concrete and abstract words and times, 2) more concrete words will be recalled than abstract words during the immediate recall, 3) method of loci during the immediate recall will result in the most words recalled, 4) participants using method of loci to recall concrete words will result in the most words recalled compared to other methods of memorization of concrete and abstract words, 5) the method of loci will yield the most words recalled, 6) more concrete words will be recalled than abstract words, and 7) more words will be recalled during the immediate recall than the 5 min delay recall. The results suggested that there was a main effect of time, suggesting that the scores differed between the immediate recall and the 5 min recall task. No significant results were found for the other hypotheses. Future research should include the investigation of a long term delayed recall task and multiple scoring methods

Should We Turn off the Music? Music with Lyrics Interferes with Cognitive Tasks

People often listen to music while doing cognitive tasks. Yet, whether music harms or helps performance is still debated. Here, we assessed the objective and subjective effects of music with and without lyrics on four cognitive tasks. College students completed tasks of verbal and visual memory, reading comprehension, and arithmetic under three conditions: silence, instrumental music, and music with lyrics. Participants judged their learning during and after each condition. Music with lyrics hindered verbal memory, visual memory, and reading comprehension (d ≈ –0.3), whereas its negative effect (d = –.19) on arithmetic was not credible. Instrumental music (hip-hop lo-fi) did not credibly hinder or improve performance. Participants were aware of the detrimental impact of the lyrics. Instrumental music was, however, sometimes perceived as beneficial. Our results corroborate the general distracting effect of background music. However, faulty metacognition about music’s interfering effect cannot fully explain why students often listen to music while studying

The effect of selected auditory presentation conditions of a picture song-book on preschool children's word recall

Submitted to the Department of Music and Dance and the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music Education

For a lark : the poetry of songs

Tese de doutoramento, Estudos de Literatura e de Cultura (Teoria da Literatura), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras, 2015It is commonly accepted that art is humanity’s highest achievement and a definite proof of distinction between humans and other animals. In that sense, the higher the artistic accomplishment, the more sublime the human. The premise for my thesis is that a distinction between high and low art is useless, and, as such, other distinctions must be put in place in order to qualify human beings and the environments they inhabit. My overall argument is that it is not the extraordinary but the ordinary that distinguishes human beings not only from other animals but also among themselves. Ordinariness is the central aspect of our lives and a decisive part of who we are. Many different aspects out of our control condition choices we make, and we are usually led to believe that those aspects are what is relevant for assessing our lives; nevertheless, it is what we choose that is decisive. Taking pop music as an instance of low art, how and why we relate to some things and not others will be discussed; by approximating pop music to the practices of poetry, an instance of high art, it will be shown that most intellectual thought put in the creation of one type of art is present in the other: allegiance to one or the other is a matter of personal choice, not of constituency.É comum aceitar a ideia de que a arte é aquilo que a humanidade tem de mais nobre e a demonstração absoluta de que os humanos são diferentes de outros animais. Desse ponto de vista, quanto mais nobre a arte mais sublime o ser humano. A premissa da minha tese é a de que a distinção entre arte erudita e arte popular é inútil e, assim sendo, devem ser consideradas outras distinções para qualificar seres humanos e os vários espaços que habitam. O meu argumento geral pressupõe que não é o extraordinário mas antes o comum que nos distingue não só de outros animais mas também de outros especímenes humanos. Aquilo que é central nas nossas vidas, e um aspecto crucial para sermos quem somos, é aquilo que fazemos normalmente. Sendo que as nossas escolhas podem ser condicionadas por muitas variáveis, temos por hábito pensar que o que é importante para compreendermos a nossa vida são essas variáveis; no entanto, são as nossas escolhas que importam. Tomando a música pop como um exemplo de arte popular, serão discutidas as formas e razões que nos levam a apreciar algumas coisas em detrimento de outras; ao aproximar a música pop das práticas da poesia (uma arte erudita), pretende-se mostrar que a maior parte das considerações que dão origem a uma são idênticas às que originam a outra: a inclinação para uma ou para a outra depende da escolha pessoal, não de predisposição biológica.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

The Role of Extraversion, Sensitivity to Music Reward, and Music Tempo on Word Recall

The Mozart Effect refers to the theory that exposure to classical music will make people more intelligent. The study explored whether the benefits of classic music extended to memory processes such as immediate word recall, while considering individual differences in extroversion and sensitivity to music reward. To test this, 56 first-year psychology students completed Eysenck’s Personality Inventory, the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire and a music experience questionnaire. Participants then were exposed to a three-minute Mozart excerpt that was either slow, regular or fast tempo, then completed an immediate recall task. A 2X2X3 ANOVA was conducted, a significant interaction effect was found for tempo X extraversion. No other significant main or interaction effects were found. Independent t-tests found low extraversion people performed significantly better after regular tempo than slow tempo music. Independent t-tests also found low extraversion people performed significantly better than high extraversion people after regular tempo music. Implications of the results are discussed

A Philosophy of Cover Songs

Cover songs are a familiar feature of contemporary popular music. Musicians describe their own performances as covers, and audiences use the category to organize their listening and appreciation. However, until now philosophers have not had much to say about them. In A Philosophy of Cover Songs, P.D. Magnus demonstrates that philosophy provides a valuable toolbox for thinking about covers; in turn, the philosophy of cover songs illustrates some general points about philosophical method. Lucidly written, the book is divided into three parts: how to think about covers, appreciating covers, and the metaphysics of covers and songs. Along the way, it explores a range of issues raised by covers, from the question of what precisely constitutes a cover, to the history and taxonomy of the category, the various relationships that hold between songs, performances, and tracks, and the appreciation and evaluation of covers. This unique and engaging book will be of interest to those working in philosophy of art, philosophy of music, popular music studies, music history, and musicology, as well as to readers with a general interest in popular music, covers, and how we think about them