How a Song’s Section Order Affects Both ‘Refrein’ Perception and the Song’s Perceived Meaning

Abstract

Digital technologies provide excellent possibilities to create various versions of musical stimuli without changing the performance. Thus, the effect of specific musical properties (such as pitch height, timing or section order) can be tested in a performance-neutral way. In a small listening experiment, the section order within a song is manipulated digitally to investigate several hypotheses. As expected, the perception of song sections as either verse, chorus or bridge turns out to be dependent not only on their musical and lyrical properties but also on their position within the song. The interpretation of a song’s meaning is also partly determined by section order. As evidenced by the author’s research, the participants’ interpretation of a song is mainly based on the song section that they perceive to be the ‘refrein’ (i.e. the chorus, or the leading refrain line).