Corpus analysis as a method for describing multipart folk songs: The case of the Moksha pentatonic songs

Abstract

This paper explores the possibilities of applying the method of corpus analysis to traditional multipart songs and presents some results of such analysis using as an example the multipart songs of the Moksha-Mordvins, a Finno-Ugric people living in the Volga region of Russia. The musical material of the research originates from our fieldwork in Mordovia in 2015-2020, where a large number of Mordovian songs were recorded using multichannel technology. This material is complemented by the collection of score notations of Moksha songs published by Nikolai Boyarkin in the 1980s. The analysis focuses on the harmonic structure of Moksha pentatonic songs, which belong to the old stylistic layer. Through the comparison of two sub-corpora, we trace the changes in the Moksha musical style over the last 50 years and explain the research findings based on our knowledge of this culture.