The melodic syntax of Bebop creates distinct physiological and cognitive pressures for vocalists whose first language (L1) is tonal, such as Mandarin. Instrumentalists meet Bebop through digital mechanics and abstract harmonic reasoning, but tonal-language vocalists bring a vocal motor system in which pitch is inextricably weighted with lexical meaning. This Practice-as-Research (PaR) project follows a Mandarin-speaking singer working through Charlie Parker’s Donna Lee. A six-week reflective journal grounds the analysis, revealing recurring “somatic resistance”: L1 phonological habits, especially the link between pitch control and laryngeal tension, intrude on Bebop-line execution. At several points, the nervous system reads harmonic tension—such as a Major 7th against a dominant harmony—as an outright mistake, triggering automatic throat tightening. The study shows that fluency requires “phonological remapping” to separate pitch production from L1 tone articulation. Switching from the high-back vowel /u/, which pulls the tract toward the interference-prone setup used in Mandarin tone production, to the low-back vowel /ɑ/ released the throat’s grip and made rapid chromatic passages workable. On this basis, the study proposes a biomechanical approach to cross-cultural jazz vocal training, framing improvisation not simply as a cognitive act but as a negotiation across phonetic and articulatory systems.
Yuan Wang (Wed,) studied this question.
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