Effect of spoken dialect on singing technique in Lithuanian traditional music

Background in ethnomusicology. It is widely known that dialects of vocal tradition differ not only in traits of musical structures, but also in vocal techniques. In part, our earlier studies showed that there are certain dialectal differences between vocal techniques of Northeastern and Southern Lithuania (Ambrazevičius, 2001, 2002). Background in phonetics. Obviously, spoken dialects differ, more or less, in phonetics, lexis, and other qualities of language. For example, numerous studies show that all Lithuanian dialects have some peculiar features. Southern and Eastern Aukštaitian (Southern and Northeastern Lithuanian) are similar in different levels of language. Nevertheless, these dialects differ in the acoustics of vowels (spectrum, intensity, pitch) (Leskauskaitė, 2004; Urbanavičienė, 2003