Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

Appendix 3.04 Survey of

The Neurosciences and Music I

V

Conference 2011

Learning and Memory

Symposium 9:

LEARNING AND MEMORY IN MUSICAL DISORDERS

(46

-49)

Title, Category

Aim

Mus. Material, Cultural Ref.

Technology & Procedure

Main focus of interest

Conclusion

46. 
    

    Simone Dalla Bella, Alexandra Tremblay

    
    

Champoux, Isabelle Peretz and Magdalena Berkowska

Memory disorders and vocal performance

Cat. 14: Memory

Cat. 17: Sensory

-motor

47. Lauren Stewart, Susan Anderson, Graham Welch, Evangelos Himonides and Karen Wise
    Congenital amusia: is there potential for learning?
    Cat. 10: Learning
    Cat. 11: Deficit

The role of memory in vocal performance has been paid relatively little attention. To fill this gap, I will report recent findings with participants suffering from con

genital

amus

ia (typically impaired in

vocal performance),

and from

unimpaired individuals

To describe a small-

scale

study which used a broad

brush approach of targeted interventions, in an attempt to facilitate change in both music perception and vocal production in

five individuals

diagnosed with congenital amusia

Participants were asked to

produce from memory a well

known memory or

to imitate a

model melody (in some conditions,

at the unison)

The training was conducted by a professional singing teacher,

and used elements

designed to enhance singing technique, vocal health and efficiency, musical understanding, pitch perception and production

The ability to sing in tune and in time is underpinned by a complex system (the “vocal sensorimotor loop”) invo

lving

several functional components, such as perceptual mechanism, sensorimotor integration, mo

tor control, and memory

systems

Understanding which aspects of the disorder, if any, are subject to change, constrains psychological theorizing about the nature

of the disorder and

has implicat

ions for

remediation programmes

The results point to memory as a relevant source of impairment in poor singing, and to imitation a

s a useful

aid for poor singers

The close observations made by the teacher over a sustained period of time provided new insights about areas of difficulty and potential routes of compensation for those with the disorder