Abstract
When speaking rhythms, we obviously make sounds with our mouths; we utter syllables. The syllables we use reflect how we are organizing those timed events cognitively and can influence both our performance and perception of the rhythms. Some vocal styles, like Norwegian tralling, involve improvisation using non-lexical syllables often to evoke instrumental timbres. In the context of musicianship skills, a fundamental goal is to develop the ability to recognize, remember, and produce recurring rhythmic patterns for which structured rhythmic syllables are employed as a pedagogical tool. A systematic protocol for applying syllables is, in essence, a constructed language, or 'conlang.' It is interesting to consider rhythmic syllabification from a linguistic perspective because the latter field provides a vocabulary and methodology for analyzing the traits of spoken languages. Likewise, this approach invites consideration of cognitive research on the perception and production of speech for the purpose of evaluating different syllable systems. Speaking rhythms is of course only one mode of experience. Musical rhythms are acoustic artefacts consisting of timed events; we impose order on these events by matching them with previously learned patterns. The more modalities that can be engaged to represent these patterns (auditory, kinesthetic, visual, lexical), the more pathways we have to identifying them. In cognitive research, this process has been described as "multimodal unitization" (Connoly 2014). In this presentation, I will be describing some of the pedagogical methods I employ in aural skills to develop rhythmic proficiency, the centerpiece of which is a syllable system, or rhythlang, called DUkaTaqo.
Bio
Dr. David L?berg Code is a Professor of Music Technology and Theory at Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI, USA) where he has also served as Associate Director. He has been a Fulbright Scholar and visiting researcher at the University of Oslo in Norway and the Norwegian Network for Technology, Music and Art (NOTAM); and has taught previously at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and at the University of Maryland. Code's research interests include alternative tuning and metric systems, live interactive performance with computers, musical cryptography, and interdisciplinary topics such as music and feminist pedagogy and world music. He is the founder and director of KLOrk, the Kalamazoo Laptop Orchestra, and developer of the Groven Piano, a 36-tone interactive piano network which received its premieres in Oslo, Norway and the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival (USA).