Resolving Conflicting Linguistic and Musical Cues in Metric & Beat - Strength

This study explores the interplay of accentuation in language and in music by examining situations in which implicit accents in a melody conflict with accentual patterns in the lyrics. While previous studies describe resolution of such conflicts in the context of accentuating melodic and rhythmic patterns according to the musical cues that result in incorrect text accentuation, the opposite phenomenon—in which lyric accentuation maintains its integrity when set with strongly conflicting musical accentuation—has only been speculated and artificially generated. This study examines a unique instance in which the Korean translation of the internationally popular song “Happy Birthday” renders its strong implicit musical accentuation subordinate to the conflicting linguistic features, resulting in a perceptual alteration of the intended metric structure of the song. A preliminary experiment using hand-claps suggests that native Koreans may perceive the first beat of the song as a strong beat contrary to what is implied by the musical rhythm and instructed by the notated musical score. A follow-up experiment using a more precise finger-tapping method confirms this tendency, thereby offering empirical evidence to the speculated possibility of text overriding music. Interplay of Language and Music 3