> But isn't the music lost beyond recovery? The answer is no. The rhythms - perhaps the most important aspect of music - are preserved in the words themselves, in the patterns of long and short syllables.
This sounds a little bit like bollocks to me. The way we would speak lyrics of more modern music, from Bach to Bieber, rarely matches up with how they are set to music.
Given the article is written by the man behind this work, I'm not too sure whether that's a gross over-simplification for the BBC audience, or if it's simply the best they're able to do. Or perhaps some other research suggests that in those times singing really was identical to speaking with the exception of pitch/timbre etc. and rhythm didn't alter at all?
edit: Does seem like it was just an over-simplification, some great additional thoughts in replies to me
This sounds a little bit like bollocks to me. The way we would speak lyrics of more modern music, from Bach to Bieber, rarely matches up with how they are set to music.
Given the article is written by the man behind this work, I'm not too sure whether that's a gross over-simplification for the BBC audience, or if it's simply the best they're able to do. Or perhaps some other research suggests that in those times singing really was identical to speaking with the exception of pitch/timbre etc. and rhythm didn't alter at all?
edit: Does seem like it was just an over-simplification, some great additional thoughts in replies to me