Presentation
Employing Post-Tonal Analytic Techniques to Discern Normative Scalar constructs: A Case Study of Nova Scotian Traditional Vocal Music
Rethinking Musical Mode Symposium
(2021)
Abstract
Much of the traditional vocal repertoire of North America has, as of yet, only been
assessed with the most rudimentary of tonal and modal scalar descriptors. While descriptors such as the major scale, the Mixolydian mode, or the ^1-^2-^3-^5-^6 pentatonic scale are convenient grouping labels, they do not map the variety of pitch-collections traversed by many
folksongs. Richard Chrisman’s notion of a successive-interval array (SIA) has merits for analyzing
this repertoire, as it enables the appraisal of a melody in terms of its intervallic content without
having to commit to the implied analytical associations of traditional scalar or modal
descriptors. Although many melodies conform to these scalar frames, many do sound all the
pitches of an anticipated scale or mode, while others contain chromatic distortions of such
preconceived tonal/modalpitch-space. Although folk scholars have wrested to reconcile these
issues of collection size and pitch space over the past century (see Gagnon 1865,Sharp 1907,
Gilchrist 1911, Barbeau 1944, Bronson 1969, Cadzen 1971), post-tonal analysis offers a robust
array of analytical tools to enable a nuanced quantitative assessment of the pitch spaces
encoded into conventional music notation. This presentation serves to explore the application
of select post-tonal analytical techniques to aid the quantitative exploration of the pitch-spaces
through a case study involving English, French, and Gaelic-based traditional vocal music of Nova Scotia, Canada. This work will span 1,948 transcribed melodies spanning the work of Nova
Scotian song collectors such as William Roy MacKenzie, John Byers, John Campbell, Helen
Creighton, Doreen Senior, and other collectors and transcribers.
Keywords
- post-tonal analysis,
- successive-interval-array,
- tonic-centered successive-interval array,
- Nova Scotia,
- traditional music
Disciplines
Publication Date
November 12, 2021
Location
Institute for Ethnomusicology at Kunst Universität - Graz
Citation Information
Peter Fielding. "Employing Post-Tonal Analytic Techniques to Discern Normative Scalar constructs: A Case Study of Nova Scotian Traditional Vocal Music" Rethinking Musical Mode Symposium (2021) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/peter-fielding/102/
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY-NC International License.