Prosody in AT Mahmud's Selected Children's Songs Lyrics

Fortunata Tyasrinestu

Faculty of Performing Arts, Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta, Jl. Parangtritis Km 6.5, Bantul, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Keywords: prosody, children's songs, children's lyrics.

Abstract: This study examines the speech sound in selected children's song lyrics by AT Mahmud. The speech

sound is divided into two characteristics, segmental and suprasegmental characteristics. Segmental

characteristics are characteristics of sound that refers to orderly arranged sound units, while

suprasegmental features or called prosody traits are sound features that cover more than one sound

segment, namely pressure, joints, length of sound, and pitches that include tone and intonations. The

objective of this study is to describe the characteristics of speech sound in a suprasegmental manner on

selected children's songs by AT Mahmud, especially the musical speech sound by paying attention to

the words or lyrics in the children songs. The lyrical and musical characteristics which are mutually

integrated create beautiful harmonies in children's songs. This study uses a descriptive method with

three stages, namely data provision stage, data analysis stage, and the presenting of data analysis results

stage. The data analysis is conducted after the data classification. The result shows that the speech

sound of the chosen Dendang Kencana's song lyrics has nearly the same characteristics of language and

musical sounds which based on the identification of the suprasegmental characteristics of the musical

lyrics.

1 INTRODUCTION

Sound is the main element in the music. It can be

produced by speech organs or musical instruments.

Sound produced by speech organs usually called

vocal music. These vocals can be explained as sounds

produced by speech organs. Whereas in language,

technically, according to Kridalaksana (1983: 27)

sound is the impression on the ganglion as the result

of the eardrum vibration which reacts due to the

changes in the air pressure. While speech soundsare

units of sound produced by speech organs which

observed as "phone" and in phonemic as "phonemes"

(Chaer, 2007: 43). Accordingly, the speech sound and

the vocal music sound are interpreted as the sounds

produced by speech organs. Songs as chants that are

recited have interesting peculiarities.

The importance of pronunciation for the

understanding of a conversation also applies in

singing at the time when the lyrics in a song are

pronounced based on a series of melodies. If a

conversation cannot be understood properly just

because of the pronunciation error, the grammatical

and lexical elements in a meaning will disappear.

Likewise in pronunciation of lyrics in a song, good

pronunciation will make it easier to understand the

spoken words. So that fluent reading is not enough

because there are melodies or tones that accompany

the lyrics or words

2 SPEECH AND MUSICAL

SOUNDS

2.1 Sillable Sounds

When you hear people talking or singing, you will

hear a continuous sequence of speech sounds,

sometimes the sound rises and falls, sometimes you

hear a short stop or along with stop along with loud

or soft pressure, once in the while the sound also

prolong or regular. After orthographic transcription in

the next stage, segments of the sound sequence can be

more segmented into the units of sound sequence

called syllables. For example, if we take the segement

of sequential sound [kerlap kerlip bintang], then we

find the syllable [ker], [lap], [ker], [lip], [bin], [tang]

Syllable is a sequence of speech sounds marked

by one of the loudest unit of sound, accompanied with

or without precede or simultaneous sounds. The

Tyasrinestu, F.

Prosody in AT Mahmud’s Selected Children’s Songs Lyrics.

DOI: 10.5220/0009433804990501

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Interdisciplinary Arts and Humanities (ICONARTIES 2019), pages 499-501

ISBN: 978-989-758-450-3

499

presence of loudness or sonority is what marks the

syllable (Chaer, 2007: 101). Further explained that

the loudness is indicated by a vowel sound.

Therefore, some say to determine how many syllables

there are in a single unit of sound, we see that there

are several vowels in it. Syllable can also be

interpreted as the smallest rhythmic unit in a speech

flow or sequence of speech sounds. One syllable

usually includes one vowel, or one vowel and one

consonant or more.

Example of the word [earth], this word consists of

sounds [b], [u], [m], [i]. Sounds [b] and [m] are

consonant sounds, while sounds [u], and [i] are

vowels. The [u] and [i] sounds are said to be the top

of the syllabic and the high sonority. The word earth

consists of two syllables [bu] and [mi]. Vocal sounds

may always be the high sonority in a syllable. But in

certain rhythmic units, a consonant, both voiceless

and silent, also has the possibility to become the high

sonority. The word [kelapa] in Indonesian, consists of

six sounds, namely [k], [e], [l], [a], [p], [a]. However

the word kelapa is often pronounced as [klapa] so that

the first syllable is only one consonant sound, namely

[k]. Whereas in music it is known as the notation

(note) to symbolize one tone that can be filled by

syllables as part of the song lyrics. The following is

an example:

Figure 1: Notation 1. Bars 2/4

Excerpt from the example of 1 song notation,

there are four syllable [na], [ik], [tang], [ga] which

represent one note for one syllable. In the last 2/4 each

one note also represents one beat so that in one bars

there are two beats.

Figure 2: Notation 2. Bars 3/4

Examples of examples of notation 2 show there

are nine syllables of [ku], [nang], [ku], [nang], [hen],

[no], [to], [ma], [na] -one note for one silabe. In time

¾ there are three beats in each time and each note in

the example notation 2 represents one silabe too.

Silabe [nang] and [na] which have two beats on the

bar ¾ are pronounced rather long because they

represent two beats.

2.2 Sound Changing

Here, changes is referred to the sounds that

change due to their environmental effect (Muslich,

2011). The environment in this sense is when the

sound adjusts to the musical sound of the notes on

each bars in every song. The sound change does not

differentiate meaning. The following is one example

of sound changes in the song lyrics:

Figure 3: Notation 3. Bars 2/4

On the song Siapa Namamu, the word Siapakah

pronounced with seven breath blows, consisting of 7

syllables in the first row (si-a-pa-kah na-ma-mu) and

6 syllables in the second row (na-ma-ku re-vi-na).

Nevertheless in the musical notation that the first line

has becomes 6 syllables because it is pronounced as

fast as its heard (sya-pa-kah na-ma-mu) because of

one note for one syllable so that the pronunciation is

in one breath.

Here are some examples of children's songs in the

song Dendang Kencana 2017 children's song that can

explain the sound changes:

2.2.1 Zeroization

Zeroization is phonemic sound removal as an

effect of pronunciation reduction. This event usually

occurs in the narrative of languages all over the

world, including Indonesian. Zeroization is a

common abbreviated model called contraction. The

following example of zeroization in the form of

syncope is the process of removing or dating one or

more phonemes in the middle of the word. In the song

Aku Cinta Indonesia there is a word [negri] from the

word [negeri] there is a phoneme disappearance [e], a

word [karna] from the word [karena].

2.2.2 Accompaniment

Accompaniment sounds are often found in

pronunciation of words to adjust the existing tone.

This adjustment occurs due to the syllabic system in

Indonesia, that one syllable for one note. So that if

there are two notes for one syllable there will be an

accompaniment that accompanies as in the word

[teduh] to be [teheduh], the word [burung] becomes

[buhurung] ] in the song Danau. Accompanying

sound [he] on pronunciation [shade] and [hu] on

ICONARTIES 2019 - 1st International Conference on Interdisciplinary Arts and Humanities

500

[bird]. It can also be seen in the song Kerlip Bintang

with the pronunciation [gelap] becomes [gehelap]

because there is an accompaniment sound [he].

This accompaniment sometimes occurs

scientifically by someone as a result of the

participation of other means, when the first utterance

is sounded. The other possibility of this

accompaniment is to sound [bu], so that it overlaps

the road by inserting a sound [h] behind it, so that the

sound [bu] can be easily pronounced and deliver to

the next syllable, namely [rung].

From a musical point of view, the accompaniment

sounds arise because it fills in the syllable void that

should be present in the note, usually because there is

a legato in the note so that the accompanying sound

appears to fill the note. On the side of pronunciation,

the articulation will be clearly heard and easy in

pronounce.

Teduh - KV-KVK becomes Teheduh - KV-KV-

Gelap - KV-KVK becomes gehelap - KV-KV-

KVK

Burung - KV-KVKK becomes Buhurung KV-

KV-KVKK

Besides sound accompaniment there are sounds

that are omitted for example in the word [karna] of

the origin word [karena], the letter [e] is omitted. This

omission due to the adjustment of one note for only

one syllable, so that if there are two syllables, it will

be eliminated into one syllable as well as in the

pronunciation.

3 CONCLUSIONS

Based on the results of the descriptive and analytical

data, it can be concluded that in the song lyrics, the

children pay attention to the syllable which is

adjusted to the number of notes. One syllable for one

note, if found outside of these provisions, the song

lyrics will experience adjustments with the sound

changes in the form of zeroization and

accompaniment sound to match the beats and notes in

the song.

REFERENCES

Chaer, Abdul. 2007. General Linguistics. Jakarta: Rineka

Cipta.

Dardjowidjojo, Soenjono. 2008. Psycholinguistics

introduction to understanding human language. Jakarta:

Indonesian Torch Foundation.

Kridalaksana, Harimurti. 1983. Dictionary of linguistics.

Jakarta: Gramedia.

Muslich, Mansur. 2011. Indonesian language phonology.

Jakarta: Bumi Aksara.

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