Researchers Map How Identity Shows in Chinese Vocal Music

Researchers in China propose a new computational framework to analyze how identity-related expression appears in Chinese vocal music. They will build a corpus of vocal works from recent Chinese music and identity research.

The team plans to use natural language processing to analyze lyrics and extract key units, then compare acoustic features, like pitch and intensity, between speech and singing of those same units. This study seeks to quantify the relationship between lyrics, musical qualities, and perceptions of identity.

Researchers will use statistical analyses like correlation and regression to test their hypotheses and assess how well the model predicts identity ratings. The project emphasizes transparency and reproducibility through preregistration of methods and a pilot analysis demonstrating the pipeline’s feasibility. The findings could offer a replicable model for analyzing culturally embedded vocal expression and contribute to both performance science and computational musicology.