Do Japanese (pop) songs usually preserve pitch accent (so that the words have
to be chosen in accordance with the melody, just the words in English songs
have to match the meter) or does it get completely overwritten by the melody?
Or do both pitches interact in some way?
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2017-07-24T18:47:14.920
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2017-08-01T03:17:28.950
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phonology pitch-accent
Japanese pitch accent in songs
As far as I know, pitch accent is less relevant in Japanese pop music than it
is in English pop music partially because Japanese syllables are more
percussive than English syllables are (think: one consonant-sound and one
vowel for (most) Japanese syllables), and so sound less unnatural when pitch
accent changes for the sake of a melody.

However, sometimes, guttural stops such as words with (small) っ are sometimes
pronounced as enunciated extra vowels with stops in between: A word such as
きっと "kitto" might be easily heard as "ki-i-to" instead.
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2017-07-24T19:00:18.710
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2017-07-24T19:00:18.710
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The simple answer? No. Japanese completely overwrite pitches in many songs
just to go with the melody.

Because Japanese tones vary depending what region you're in (different regions
carry different dialects, with varying pitches for the same words), it's not
practical to put it in a song that would want to be played in all of Japan.

Taken from wiki (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pitch_accent>): "For
instance, the word for "now" is [iꜜma] in the Tokyo dialect, with the accent
on the first mora (or equivalently, with a downstep in pitch between the first
and second morae), but in the Kansai dialect it is [i.maꜜ]. A final [i] or [ɯ]
is often devoiced to [i̥] or [ɯ̥] after a downstep and an unvoiced consonant."
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2017-07-30T23:53:02.420
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2017-07-30T23:53:02.420
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"Singing", as in what people might do with their voices in songs, can vary a
lot by genre, style, etc. When people say words in different ways, contrasts
in speech, such duration between long and short vowels (e.g. _o_ vs _ou_ ) may
become harder, if not impossible, to distinguish. As mentioned in some of the
comments above, pitch often gets overridden by musical concerns (pitch of
melody, and so forth) in many songs.

It should be noted however, however, that something like "pitch accent" is
_more than just a change in pitch_. Pitch accent might be accompanied by all
sorts of things, such as voice quality, duration, etc. (I don't know the
specifics of this for Japanese pitch). While "pitch accent", or some other
term, might be a convenient way to talk about the structure of Japanese in
theory, these contrasts are natural phenomena which are signaled in many ways
(not just some +/-HIGH, as a grammar text may describe it).

In the end, for people proficient in a language, recognizing words even with
added musical "noise" may not be a problem. More so than with Japanese, I've
seen this with Chinese. A foreigner would not get very far learning the
distinguishing tones for words from some song, but a native speaker or
experienced learner would have no issue repeating lyrics in a normal speaking
voice, with the "correct", expected tones.
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2017-08-01T03:17:28.950
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