From Intonation Adjustments to Synchronization of Heart Rate Variability: Singer Interaction in Traditional Georgian Vocal Music

Abstract

This paper is concerned with how singers of Georgian traditional vocal music interact when singing together. Applying a variety of computational methods from audio signal processing and music information retrieval (MIR), we examine three existing corpora of (field) recordings for manifestations of a high degree of mutual coordination of the singers’ voices. We find numerous examples of harmonically controlled mutual intonation adjustments on both short and long time scales. Furthermore, we believe that the observed differences in melodic and harmonic scales can also be interpreted as (side) effects of the singers’ interaction with the possible goal of achieving harmonic togetherness (or consonance) on the time scale of individual (important) notes. In addition, together with the ensemble Khelkhvavi from Ozurgeti, we conducted an experiment demonstrating the synchronization of singers’ heartbeat rates during the performance of the Gurian song Chven Mshvidoba. The results of our analysis show that a variety of measurable signs of interaction between singers can be observed and documented in existing corpora of Georgian traditional vocal music. Our experience also shows that relevant information about the synchronization of the bodily functions of singers during performances can nowadays be obtained with reasonable technical and logistical effort even in a ‘real world’ framework, thereby allowing us to address questions related to the ‘ecological validity’ of this kind of measurement.