THE INTERPLAY OF LINGUISTIC AND HISTORICAL INFLUENCES ON MUSICAL RHYTHM IN DIFFERENT CULTURES

New techniques for comparing rhythm in language and music [1] and new data on musical rhythm from a range of Western societies [2] provide an opportunity to study the relationship between linguistic and musical rhythm in a number of cultures. Specifically, one can ask if “stress-timed ” and “syllable-timed ” languages are associated with distinctive musical rhythms. If so, then it might make sense to speak of stress-timed and syllable-timed music. In conducting such studies it is important to bear in mind that in any given culture there may be historical musical influences which run counter to linguistic influences. We illustrate this point with an examination of German/Austrian music. German is a stress-timed language but it appears that the rhythm of much German/Austrian music (especially during the Baroque and Classical eras) does not reflect this linguistic rhythm [2]. This may be due to the well-known influence of Italian music on German music during these eras [3]. Some support for this idea comes from a historical analysis of German/Austrian music, which shows that this music becomes more “stress-timed ” after the end of the Classical period. 1