It has been assumed by some that gestural beats 'mark the rhythmic pulsation of speech' (McNeill (1992). Others have found that gestural beats are organised in rhythmic patterns which do not necessarily co-occur with stressed syllables (McClave 1994). There has been little work to date that looks at the inter-relationship between song rhythm and the rhythm of co-occurring gesture and gesture-like activities such as drawing. We analyse an Arandic sung story from Central Australia which is accompanied by both drawing (on the ground) and gesture. Such sung stories contrast sharply with traditional songs which have a fixed text set to a fixed rhythm. By extending our analyses of song performances to include these other modalities, such as drawing, and the embodied actions or gestures that co-occur with song texts, we provide another window on the way that rhythmic structure is organised. We aim to identify the relationship between the rhythm of the gestural activities and the rhythmic and melodic structure of the song.
Authors: Jenny Green & Myfany Turpin
Event: SF08: Speed Papers