Japanese pitch accent in songs


Do Japanese (pop) songs usually preserve pitch accent (so that the words have
to be chosen in accordance with the melody, just the words in English songs
have to match the meter) or does it get completely overwritten by the melody?
Or do both pitches interact in some way?




The simple answer? No. Japanese completely overwrite pitches in many songs
just to go with the melody.

Because Japanese tones vary depending what region you're in (different regions
carry different dialects, with varying pitches for the same words), it's not
practical to put it in a song that would want to be played in all of Japan.

Taken from wiki (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pitch_accent>): "For
instance, the word for "now" is [iꜜma] in the Tokyo dialect, with the accent
on the first mora (or equivalently, with a downstep in pitch between the first
and second morae), but in the Kansai dialect it is [i.maꜜ]. A final [i] or [ɯ]
is often devoiced to [i̥] or [ɯ̥] after a downstep and an unvoiced consonant."

