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MICROCREATIVITY:

VOCAL RELEASES IN CAUDA AS STYLISTIC


MARKS IN SARDINIAN A TENORE SINGING
PAOLO BRAVI

Introduction
The a tenore song is a genre of multipart vocal singing practiced in the
central area of Sardinia, mostly in the sub-regions Barbagia and Baronia,
by singers with various degrees of specialization on various occasions,
among which are the accompaniment of poetry contests and dancing. A
thorough introduction to the a tenore song has recently been published as
part of the Enciclopedia della musica sarda (Casu and Lutzu 2012-2013):
Pilosu 2012a and 2012b.
The four male voices comprising an a tenore choir are usually called
bassu, contra, boghe and mesu boghe (from the lowest to the highest
voice). Among them, the role of the boghe is distinct from that of the other
three: he sings the verbal text (usually poetry in Sardinian language),
whereas the other three parts provide a vocal accompaniment using
nonsense syllables. The two lower parts of the accompaniment choir, the
bassu and the contra, use characteristic guttural voices, which are obtained
through a particular constriction of the laryngeal muscles. In the case of
the bassu, this entails the doubling of the period, i.e. the production of a
note one octave below the one that would be produced in modal voice
(Bailly, Henrich, Pelorson 2010).
The intervention of the three voices of accompaniment is realized in
sections called corfos (sing. corfu). In the corfos the three accompanying
parts of the tenorebassu (plural: bassos), contra (plural: contras) and
mesu boghe (plural: mesu boghes)sing together, though not always in a
homorhythmic way, sometimes along with the soloist part, the boghe.
Their melodic profiles may vary, particularly as far as the mesu boghe and
the contra parts are concerned, but the most common disposition of the
voices, found at the end of each corfu, is represented in fig. 1.

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Fig. 1. The usual disposition of the voices in the a tenore songs at the end of the
sections called corfos.

2. Materials and method


The topic of the analysis presented here is a stylistic feature that can be
observed in some singers at the end of the corfos, i. e. an emphasis of the
closure created by the pronunciation of a nasal (usually [m]- or [n]-like)
sound, sometimes preceded by a glottal stop and/or a glottal frication after
the last vowel of the corfu.
Io ci gioco con questo elemento [lenfatizzazione della chiusura del corfu].
un po come lasciare limpronta della tua voce. Ed molto udibile, gli
ascoltatori lo notano, e te lo chiedono: Ma che cos questa cosa che fate
alla fine del canto? Si sente questo rilascio, come se fosse quasi il
rinculo proprio della pressione sonora. un effetto che nellascoltatore
molto evidente. (Bandinu 2012)
I play with this element [the emphasis on corfu closure]. It is like leaving
a footprint of your own voice. And it is clearly audible, the listeners
perceive it, and they ask you about it: What is that thing that you do at the
end of the singing? One hears this release..., it is just like a recoil of the
sound pressure. It is an effect that is clearly evident to the listener.

An analysis has been carried out on the three accompaniment voices of


three a tenore choirs from different Sardinian villages, Orotelli, Orune and
Siniscola (see fig. 2). The villages designations are written in the graphs
below as orot, orun and sini and the three parts of the choir are
labelled as bs (bassu), co (contra) and mb (mesu boghe). The
singers voices were recorded in a recording studio as separate tracks.

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196

SINISCOLA
ORUNE
OROTELLI

Fig. 2. On the left: map showing the distribution of a tenore choirs in the villages
of Sardinia (the original map is taken from Pilosu 2012a: 29). On the right: the
nine singers of the recordings, placed on the basis of their provenance and singing
role: bassu, contra, mesu boghe, referred to as BS, CO and MB. They are
Francesco Luigi Podda (BS), Pino Ortu (CO) and Massimiliano Pusceddu (MB),
from Orotelli; Pietro Mula (BS), Peppinu Cidda (CO) and Piero Cidda (MB), from
Orune; Stefano Spanu (BS), Domenico Carta (CO) and Giovanni Mele (MB), from
Siniscola.

The analysis was carried out using the software Praat (Boersma and
Weenink, 2011) on a corpus of 105 (35 closures x 3 voices) audio
fragments identified and extracted on the basis of a two-step procedure
consisting firstly of a preliminary manual segmentation based on
perceptual criteria and secondly on the automatic detection of intensity fall
(arbitrarily set at < 40 dB) as the end point of the extracted audio fragment
(fig. 3).

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197

Fig. 3. The two phases of the segmentation and annotation of the corfos releases.
Each part of the accompaniment choir (bassu, contra, mesu boghe) was annotated
on a couple of tiers: in the upper one the segmentation was performed manually
(the interval in this tier is labelled r); in the lower one the end boundary is
replaced via an automatic procedure based on the detection of the falling of the
intensity curve below 40 dB (the interval in this tier is labelled r2). In this
example, the part under observation is that of the contra.

3. Analysis
The analysis took into consideration four acoustic features in the closure
of the corfos, that is pitch, intensity, spectrum and duration, and the
statistics were obtained by means of the software R (RDCT 2012). The
topic has also been discussed with some a tenore singers. They are Omar
Bandinu, bassu of the tenore group Mialinu Pira from Bitti, Domenico
Carta and Luigi Carta, contras from Siniscola, Stefano Frau, contra of the
tenore group Osana from Orosei and the Cuncordu Vramentu of Fonni.
The research, based on the integration of fieldwork and documents
analysis, shares the principles and method described and discussed in
Bravi, 2012.

3.1 Pitch
In some singers, the pitch profile exhibits a characteristic high jump in
the voiced part of the corfu release. An analysis of this acoustic feature
was carried out by measuring the difference in semitones from the pitch
before the release and the maximum pitch in the release, as shown in fig.
4.

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Fig. 4. The measure of the high jump, a feature observable in many corfos
releases.

As figure 5 shows, the clearest difference in this case is regarding the


behavior of the bassos and those of the other two voices. The high-jump
is very strong in the bassos; particularly in two of them, and the pitch
jump usually exceeds the octave due to the release of the laryngeal
constriction which causes the doubling of the period. As far as the voices
which do not exhibit period doubling are concerned, the contra of
Siniscola displays the highest pitch jumps, which correspond to a clear and
strong emphasis on the closure of the corfu, whereas no high-jump is
present in the mesu boghes.

Paolo Bravi

orot

25

199

orun

sini

Semitones

20
15
10
5
0
-5
bs

co

mb

bs

co

mb

bs

co

mb

Role of the singer

Fig. 5. Distribution of the pitch jumps in the releases, per village and part.

Generally speaking, the high-jump in the release therefore seems to


be a characteristic of guttural voices, particularly strong in the bassos, and
weaker or absent in the higher voices, the contras and the mesu boghes.
A second feature of the pitch profile in the release is its descent in its
final part, which has been measured as the difference (in semitones) from
the maximum pitch level and the pitch level at the end of the release (see
fig. 6). In this case, no clear trend appears as far as the different kinds of
voice are concerned, whereas a strong lowering of the pitch in the final
part of the release seems to be an individual characteristic of the mesu
boghe of Orune (see fig. 7).

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200

Fig. 6. The measure of the pitch descent in the corfos releases.


orot

20

orun

sini

Semitones

15

10

0
bs

co

mb

bs

co

mb

bs

co

mb

Role of the singer

Fig. 7. Distribution of the pitch descents in the corfos releases, per village and part.

3.2 Intensity
As far as intensity is concerned, the presence or the absence of a hump in
the intensity curve1 of the releases is a feature which reveals either a
strong or a smooth emphasis in the closure of the corfu (see fig. 8). In this
case, the analysis shows that humps are common everywhere, but that the
absence of humps is less frequent in the bassos than in the other voices
(fig. 9).

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201

20
15

presence of a hump
absence of a hump

10

occorrences

25

30

35

Fig. 8. The intensity curve in the corfu release may (or may not) show a hump,
i.e. may reach its maximum level after the release start point.

bs

co

mb

Fig. 9. Distribution of corfos releases with and without humps in their intensity
curves, per part.

3.3 Spectrum
The emphasis on the closure of corfu sometimes occurs through the
insertion of a fricative section which precedes the final nasal release. This
friction is in some cases clearly visible in the spectrogram, where
relatively strong energy bands appear in the higher part of the spectrum
above 5 kHz (see fig. 10).

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Fig. 10. An example of a fricative section at the beginning of a corfu release. The
rounded rectangle displays the presence of energy bands in the upper part of the
spectrogram.

The perceptual relevance of the friction is related to both its strength


and its duration. For this reason, the analysis has taken into account the
spectral evolution over time and was carried out via the measure of the
band energy difference (low band: 0-5 kHz, high band: 5-24 kHz) in five
successive spectral slices2.
The difference is lower in the bassos than in the higher voices,
particularly in the first spectra. This acoustic feature is related to a stronger
friction in the lowest voices (fig. 11, upper panel). At a keener level of
investigation, some differences appear between the three bass voices,
particularly between the bassu of Orotelli and that of Siniscola in the first
spectra (fig. 11, lower panel).

Difference of energy bands (0-5 / 5-20 kHz)

Paolo Bravi

slice

slice

203

slice

slice

slice

-20

-30

-40

-50
bs

co

mb

bs

co

mb

bs

co

mb

bs

co

mb

bs

co

mb

Difference of ebergy bands (0-5 / 5-20 kHz)

Role of the singer

slice

slice

slice

slice

slice

-15
-20
-25
-30
-35
-40
orot

orun

sini

orot

orun

sini

orot

orun

sini

orot

orun

sini

orot

orun

sini

Bassu

Fig. 11. Distribution of energy bands (0-5 / 5-20 kHz) in five subsequent spectra
after the corfos releases (time step = 0.02 s.). Upper panel: per poet; lower panel:
bassos, per village.

3.4 Time
Some acoustic features of the release concern the time dimension. Two
factors have been evaluated in this regard: the overall duration of the
release and the delay of each voices release start in relation to the voice
which starts the release first. Release duration analysis partly provides
countertrend results compared to those observed so far. The bassos
release usually has a shorter duration than that of the other voices. As far
as the difference between choirs is concerned, durations are usually longer
in all three parts of the Siniscola choir than in the other choirs (see fig. 12,
left panel). The delay of the release start shows different behaviors in the
three choirs. In the Orotelli choir, the voice which starts the closure first is
the mesu boghe; in the Orune choir it is the contra, and in the Siniscola

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choir no clear difference between the three parts is present (see fig. 12,
right panel).
In this respect, the Orotelli choir seems to reflect an idea expressed by
some a tenore singers, like those of the Cuncordu Vramentu of Fonni, who
say:
Deve uscire un unico suono da bassu e contra, non si deve distinguere tra
il basso e la contra. In poche parole, il suono deve essere unico. Invece la
mezza voce pu sganciarsi un po di pi perch guida il tenore e aiuta la
voce al tono anche La mezza voce guida il tenore, una seconda voce,
diciamo. (Interview with the Cuncordu Vramentu of Fonni, in Lutzu 2003)
Bassu and contra should make up one sound; one should not distinguish
between bassu and contra. In other words, there should be one sound.
Instead, the mesu boghe may get away a little more because he leads the
tenore and helps the boghe in the pitch as well The mesu boghe leads the
tenore, it is like a second boghe, say.

Instead, the Orune choir seems to share the idea (and the singing
behavior) maintained by two contras of different generations of Siniscola,
Luigi and Domenico Carta, according to whom: [DC] Sa chi cumandat
sonande est sempre sa contra [LC] Certu! Est sa contra che cumandat,
su bassu si depet ponnere afatu a sa contra, ca sa contra iscurtat sa oche.
[[DC] The one who is in command is always the contra [LC] Of course!
The one who commands is the contra, the bassu should follow the contra,
as the contra listens to the boghe.] (Domenico and Luigi Carta 2011)
Lastly, the behavior of the Siniscola choir, at least in the recording
analyzed here, seems to obey a third principle on the topic advocated by
Omar Bandinu, i.e. that there is no fixed voice with a lead role within the
accompaniment choir.
In questi casi, c una voce che anticipa le altre e quindi le guida []? Mah, secondo me no. Secondo me qua vige la totale libert dei cantori,
non c una voce che in qualche modo d, come dire, il La, che guida le
altre nella produzione di questo espediente della voce. (Bandinu 2012)
In these cases, is there a voice which anticipates the others, and therefore
guides them? In my opinion there is not. To me the singers are completely
free here, there is no voice which somehow guides the others in the
production of this vocal device.

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205

DURATION

START DELAY
0.25

0.55
0.50

0.20
Time (s)

0.40
0.35

0.15
0.10

0.30
0.05
0.25

sini_co

Fig. 12. Left panel: distribution of release durations; right panel: delay of the
release start with respect to the voice which starts the release first.

4. Conclusion
Upon closer inspection of the emphasis of the closure of the corfos,
what is seemingly a minor characteristic of singing and is usually
neglected as a specific musical or expressive element in the vocal
accompaniment turned out to be an interesting trait of the performative
styles in a tenore songs. A first ethnographic survey devoted to the topic
and the results of the analysis carried out on some of its acoustic features
allow some preliminary hypotheses on the whole matter.
First, there is a consistency, at least to a certain degree, in the
performances of each singer and sometimes of the choirs. The release
technique may be considered a part of the individual or collective style of
the accompaniment voices. As a feature shared within the choirs, an
emphasised release may be considered a characteristic which can
distinguish different groups and different singing styles:
La /m/ noi la usiamo fra un corfu e l'altro per non chiudere direttamente in
[a]. Invece di fare [a], fai [am] [] Noi indirizziamo dalla /a/ alla /m/,
quella una particolarit del modo di cantare nostro, del nostro tenore, per
indirizzare verso la chiusura (Frau 2011)

sini_mb

sini_bs

orun_co

orun_mb

orun_bs

orot_co

orot_mb

sini_co

sini_mb

sini_bs

orun_co

orun_mb

orun_bs

orot_co

orot_mb

orot_bs

0.00

0.20
orot_bs

Time (s)

0.45

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Microcreativity
We use /m/ between one corfu and another in order not to close directly in
[a]. Instead of doing [a], you do [am] []. We go from /a/ to /m/, this is a
peculiarity of our way of singing, of our tenore, for approaching the
closure

As an individual feature, the presence of the emphasis can be


unintentional, just a physiological side-effect of the release of the
laryngeal muscles, as Domenico Carta says:
Quello [lenfasi della chiusura del corfu] ti viene cos, non lu aches
apposta. Ti enet gai, dae su sfortzu chi aches, poi comente [finisce]: [m].
Ma no este unu difetu sicuramente cussu, este una cosa chi ti enit comente
finis de cantare che sa gula si serrat, e s'intendet, in su microfono Ma tu
dici che involontario? S, este involontariu. Poi, calincunu bi l'achet a
lu mantenere e no lu achet. Jeo mi essit a me, per esempiu, no est che lu
acu aposta, Bi nd'at chi l'achene a serrare bene, lu mantenene e no
s'intendet nudda. (Carta, Domenico 2011).
This [the emphasis on the corfu closure] comes naturally, you dont do it
on purpose. It comes from the effort that you make, and when it [ends]:
[m]. But it certainly isnt a mistake, it is something that happens when you
finish singing and your throat seals, and you can hear it through the
microphone But are you saying that it is not done deliberately? Yes, it
is involuntary. Then somebody manages to hold it back and doesnt do it.
I it happens to me, for example, its not that I do it on purpose. There are
people who manage to close well, who keep it closed, and one cannot hear
anything.

In other cases, self-assertion may play an important role in choosing


whether to emphasize the corfu closure or not, or how to do it, as there are
different ways to do it in terms of their acoustic features. Vocal releases
show performers individuality as other melodic, timbral or rhythmic traits
do. As Omar Bandinu says: ha un peso rilevante anche la propria autoaffermazione [che si realizza] attraverso questa caratterizzazione finale
[self-assertion [which can be obtained] by means of this characterization in
the final part has significant weight too]. (Bandinu 2012).
Second, the lower voices usually exhibit a more pronounced emphasis on
the closure. The release of laryngeal tension can be emphasised in a
stronger way in these kinds of voice than in modal ones.

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207

Third, the emphasis on the closure may be a way to stress the rhythmic
dimension of the song, to bring attention to the strength of the choir
accompaniment, to enhance the compactness of the ensemble and, as
pointed out by Omar Bandinu, to make a contribution to the emotional
efficacy of the song. [lenfasi nella chiusura del corfu] serve anche
per caricare proprio emotivamente il canto, anche per spingere di pi il
solista a dare una maggiore, come dire, carica emotiva al canto. [
[emphasis on corfu closure] also serves to charge the singing emotionally,
and to give the soloist a lift to provide a stronger emotional charge to the
song.] (Bandinu 2012)
In oral and traditional musical genres like the a tenore song, where
many primary stylistic features are (pre-)defined by specific and wellknown village fashions, the customization of the song is often carried by
the singers by means of low-level variations of their village model. The
singers creativity is usually expressed not in terms of the creation of
completely new melodies or the invention of rhythmic and harmonic
innovative structures, but as small and progressive changes of what each
singer has learned by listening to and practicing with others, normally in
the first years of his life. Existing repertories are subjected to a moderate
elaboration as far as individual experiences are concerned and to a slow
evolution as far as diachronic change is concerned.
Oral creativity may be seen best, in cases like this, through a
microscope, be it a careful listening or a fine-grained analysis. There is
no genius, no chosen soul, no revolutionary eccentric or hypersensitive
talent at work here, only honest, gifted, pernickety craftsmen of their own
voices. Their vocal creations have no grandeur, no vanity, no vulgarity, no
blatant appearance. I think that we may refer to them as microcreativity:
something which can be discovered and, if present, appreciated through
work, experience and practice.

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In particular, the treatment of the closure of the corfos in the a tenore


song is, in terms of its effect, no more than an acoustic device: a modest
epithetic levis immutatio of the standard corfu. In a way, it is close to the
zero-degree of microcreativity. And, of course, it is easy to fail to
recognize any creativity in it altogether, as we are the sons and daughters
of a writing-based culture and we are proneconsciously or inadvertently
to disregard or at least underestimate aspects of the performative style
which do not fit into our familiar staff notation.
I am aware of the potential damage that the (mis-)use of the word
microcreativity may cause. The concept of microcreativity is logically
opposed to that of macrocreativity. Based on that, the concept of
microcreativity might be considered as the weak side of creativity, as a
sort of poor or diminished form of it, according to the common view. In
recent times, the virtues and miracles of microbiology, minimalist art and
nanotechnologies might have changed the usual understanding of the
implications of the two prefixes micro and macro which equate them
with low- and high value. Perhaps they have even set a new benchmark in
this regard, and have started to form a different sensibility. But, to be sure
not to be misunderstood, I prefer to state explicitly that in my view
creativity is also present in this case, and that we have to think of it as
creativity in its own right.

References
Bandinu, Omar. 2012. Interview with Paolo Bravi. Cagliari, Sardinia,
Italy. 17 April.
Bailly, Lucie and Natalie Henrich, Xavier Pelorson. 2010. Vocal fold and
ventricular fold vibration in period-doubling phonation: Physiological
description and aerodynamic modeling. Journal of the Acoustical
Society of America. Vol. 127(5). 3212-3222.
http://asadl.org/jasa/search?sortby=newestdate&q=j+acoust+soc+am.+
vol+127+%285%29&faceted=faceted&searchzone=1&alias=/jasa&dis
playid=ASA&key=JASMAN&conditions=j+acoust+soc+am.+vol+127
+%285%29article&page=8.
Boersma, Paul, and David Weenink. 2011. Praat: doing phonetics by
computer. http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/.
Bravi, Paolo. 2012. "The practice of ornamentation in the multipart vocal
music of Southern Sardinia. A bifocal perspective in ethnomusicological
analysis." In Multipart music: a specific mode of musical thinking,
expressive behaviour and sound, a cura di Ignazio Macchiarella, 467490. Udine: Nota, 2012.

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Carta, Domenico and Luigi Carta. 2011. Interview with Paolo Bravi.
Siniscola, Sardinia, Italy. 22 July.
Casu, Francesco and Marco Lutzu. 2012-[c.s.]. Enciclopedia della musica
sarda. Voll. 1-16. Cagliari: Unione Sarda.
Frau, Stefano. 2011. Interview with Paolo Bravi. Orosei, Sardinia, Italy.
24 September.
Lutzu, Marco. 2003. Tenores. Vol. Suoni di un'isola, vol. 1. CD-Rom.
Cagliari: Live Studio.
Pilosu, Sebastiano. 2012a. Enciclopedia della musica sarda. Vol. 1: Canto
a tenore. Casu, Francesco and Marco Lutzu, eds. Cagliari: L'Unione
Sarda.
. 2012b. Enciclopedia della musica sarda. Vol. 2: Canto a tenore. Casu,
Francesco and Marco Lutzu, eds. Cagliari: L'Unione Sarda.
RDCT (R Development Core Team). 2012. R: A Language and
Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation for
Statistical Computing. URL: http://www.R-project.org.

Notes
1
Parameters used for the intensity measure in Praat are the following: pitch floor =
40 Hz; time step = 0.01 sec.
2
Spectral analyses were carried out by means of the relevant Praat functions, with
the following parameters: window length = 0.005; maxfreq = 24000; time step =
0.02; window shape: Gaussian.

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