She Sang as She Spoke: Billie Holiday and Aspects of Speech Intonation and Diction
2013; Routledge; Volume: 7; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/17494060.2014.903055
ISSN1749-4079
Autores Tópico(s)Diverse Musicological Studies
ResumoAbstractThe authors investigate the processes underlying Billie Holiday's oft-remarked "speech-like" singing. They identify sliding, or "kinetic," pitch as a definitive characteristic of speech intonation, and discuss the relationship between kinetic pitch and the communication of emotion in spoken English. They also adduce a connection between certain spoken consonants and the pitches of the vowels which follow them. They analyze five Holiday recordings in terms of kinetic pitch and consonant/vowel "pull-down": three versions of "Yesterdays" (J. Kern), one version of "All of Me" (G. Marks and S. Simons) and one recitation of the lyrics of "Yesterdays." The authors' pitch transcriptions of all five performances, including the recitation, demonstrate a high incidence of kinetic pitch and of consonant/vowel pull-down. Parallels between the one recited and three sung versions of "Yesterdays" are heightened when kinetic pitches are specified and included in the analysis. Notes1John White, Billie Holiday, Her Life and Times (Tunbridge Wells: Spellmount Ltd., 1987), 39.2Kitty Grime, Jazz Voices (New York: Quartet Books, 1983), 156.3Stacy Holman Jones, Torch Singing: Performing Resistance and Desire from Billie Holiday to Edith Piaf (Lanham, MD: Altamira Press, 2007), 88.4Stuart Nicholson, Billie Holiday (Boston: Northeastern, 1997), 69.5Farah Jasmine Griffin, If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery (New York: The Free Press, 2001), 152.6Henry Pleasants, "The Great American Popular Singers," in The Billie Holiday Companion: Seven Decades of Commentary, edited by Leslie Gourse (New York: Schirmer, 1997), 136.7Ann K. Wennerstrom, Music of Everyday Speech: Prosody and Discourse Analysis (Cary, NC: Oxford University Press, 2001), 4.8Dwight Bolinger, ed., Intonation: Selected Readings (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1972), I.9Geoff M. Lindsey, "Bolinger's Challenge: Melody, Meaning and Emotion," Journal of Linguistics, 27:1 (1991): 190.10A widely recorded jazz standard, "All of Me" was written by Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons in 1931. Our transcription is of Holiday's recording for Okeh (6214), reissued on the compilation Billie Holiday: The Legacy (1933-1958), Columbia/Legacy 47724 (1991).11The spoken version of "Yesterdays" appears on the rare Billie Holiday compilation, I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone, Giants of Jazz, LP 1001 (1975).12David M. Green, An Introduction to Hearing (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1976), 198.13Hao Huang and Rachel V. Huang, "Billie Holiday and Tempo Rubato: Understanding Rhythmic Expressivity," Annual Review of Jazz Studies 7 (1994/1995): 181–200 (182).14Ned Rorem, "Knowing When to Stop," in The Billie Holiday Companion, 91.15Cynthia Folio and Robert W. Weisberg, "Billie Holiday's Art of Paraphrase: A Study in Consistency," Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology, vol. 5 (Rhytmos): 247–275 (253).16Doretta L Whalen, "A Sociological and Ethnomusicological Study of Billie Holiday and Her Music" (PhD Dissertation, U. of Pittsburg, 1999), Dissertation Abstracts International 61-01A: 25: 261.17M. A. K. Halliday, A Course in Spoken English; Intonation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 3–4.18Kenneth L. Pike, Tone Languages (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1948), 17.19Dwight Bolinger, Intonation: Selected Readings (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1972), 112.20Dwight Bolinger, Intonation and Its Parts (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986), 28.21Lori Burns, "Feeling the Style: Vocal Gesture and Musical Expression in Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, and Louis Armstrong," Music Theory Online vol. 11 no. 3 (September 2005), http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.05.11.3/mto.05.11.3.burns_frames.html, accessed 28 March 2014. Shaw is quoted in Stuart Nicholson, Billie Holiday (Boston, MA: Northeastern, 1997), 107.22Stuart Nicholson, Billie Holiday (Boston, MA: Northeastern, 1997), 107.23Bolinger, Intonation and Its Parts, 28.24Johan 't. Hart, René Collier and Antonie Cohen, A Perceptual Study of Intonation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 188.25Bolinger, Intonation and Its Parts, 30.26Ibid.27Ibid, 30–32.28David Crystal, "The Intonation System of English," in Bolinger (ed.) Selected Readings, 114.29J. C. Wells, English Intonation: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 11–12.30Ivan Fónagy and Klara Magdics, "Emotional Patterns in Intonation and Music," Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung 16 (1963): 302.31Ilse Lehiste and Gordon E. Peterson, "Some Basic Considerations in the Analysis of Intonation," in Bolinger (ed.) Selected Readings, 370.32Ibid, 372; emphasis added.33Alan Cruttenden, Intonation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 143.34Billie Holiday: The Complete Commodore Recordings, CMD-2-401. Recorded 20 April 1939, World Broadcasting Studio, New York City.35Billie Holiday: The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve 1945-1959, Verve 5130859 (CD reissue, 1995), recorded in the studio probably on 27 July 1952, by Billie Holiday and her Lads of Joy.36The Essential Billie Holiday: Carnegie Hall Concert Recorded Live, Verve 833767-2 (CD reissue, 1991), recorded 10 November 1956, Carnegie Hall, New York City.37David Brazil, The Communicative Value of Intonation in English (Birmingham, England: English Language Research, 1985), 189.38Folio and Weisberg, "Billie Holiday's Art of Paraphrase," 260.39Ben Sidran, Black Talk (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 7.40Charles Suhor, "Jazz Improvisation and Language Performance: Parallel Competencies," Etc., A Review of General Semantics, 43:2 (Summer 1986): 136.41Michael Daley, "Vocal Performance and Speech Intonation: Bob Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone,'" Oral Tradition, 22/1 (2007): 96.42Gary Giddens, "Lady Gets Her Due/The Complete Lady," in Gourse (ed.) The Billie Holiday Companion, 91.43William R. Bauer, "Billie Holiday and Betty Carter: Emotion and Style in the Jazz Vocal Line," Annual Review of Jazz Studies 6 (1993): 109.44Ibid, 143–144.45Robert G. O'Meally, Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1991), 52.
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