Microtonal Variation in Sung Cantonese

Both music and language impose constraints on fundamental frequency (F0) in sung music. Composers are known to set words of tone languages to music in a way that reflects tone height but fails to include tone contour. This study tests whether choral singers add linguistic tone contour information to an unfamiliar song by examining whether Cantonese singers make use of microtonal variation.

12 native Cantonese-speaking non-professional choral singers learned and sang a novel song in Cantonese which included a minimal set of the Cantonese tones to probe whether everyday singers add in missing contour information.

Cantonese singers add in a rising F0 contour of less than a semitone when singing syllables with lexical rising tones. This microtonal variation is not observed when singing in a lower register.

Cantonese singers use microtonal contours to reflect rising contours of Cantonese linguistic tones.