Motive-level Analysis of Form-functions Association in Korean Folk song

Abstract: Computational analysis of folk song audio is challenging due to structural irregularities and the need for manual annotation. We propose a method for automatic motive segmentation in Korean folk songs by fine-tuning a speech transcription model on audio lyric with motif boundary annotation. Applying this to 856 songs, we extracted motif count and duration entropy as structural features. Statistical analysis revealed that these features vary systematically according to the social function of the songs. Songs associated with collective labor, for instance, showed different structural patterns from those for entertainment or personal settings. This work offers a scalable approach for quantitative structural analysis of oral music traditions.