Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

Appendix 3.03 Survey of The Neurosciences

and Music III Conference 2008

Disorders and Plasticity

Part II. Normal and Impaired Singing

(10

-15)

Title, Category

Aim

Mus. Material, Cultural Ref.

Technology & Procedure

Main focus of i

nterest

Conclusion

10. Dalla Bella & Berkowska
    (99

-107)

Singing proficiency in the majority

Cat. 1: Pitch

Cat. 5: Song

11S

. Berkowska & Dalla
Bella

(108

-11)

Linguistic information and singing

Cat. 5: Song

Cat. 6: Language

We systematically

examined

singing proficiency in a group of occasional singers, with the goal of characterizing the dif ferent patterns of poor singing

To examine the effect of reducing linguistic information on singing proficiency in occasional singers (Polish) witho

ut formal musical

training

Task material:

Sung Performance Battery (SPB), requiring repetition of isolated pitches, intervals, and short novel melodies. In addition, singing three well

known melodies at a natural tempo and a slow tempo, indicated by a me

tronome

CR: Western

Task material:

Three highly familiar songs: ”Brother John”, ”JIngle Bells”

”Sto lat”, with Polish lyrics

CR: Western

39 occasional singers. Tasks:

1) Production task: Sing the beginning of 3 melodies with Polish lyrics. 2) Repetiti

on

task: Imitate the same songs at a fixed slow tempo, indicated by metronome beat

39 occasional singers. Task: Sing melodies

a) with lyrics,

b) on the syllable

/la/.

1a & 1

b) Production task:

singing from memory. 2a

&

2b) Repetition task: the same songs at a fixed slow tempo

Note onset times and pitch heights served to compute various measures of pitch and time accuracy (as below, 11S) Differences in pitch precision:

Interval errors, contour errors, interval deviation errors, initial pitch de

viation. Differences in

temporal precision: Note durations, temporal variability, tempo deviation

Poor singers were mos

tly

impaired on the pitch dimension.

Repeating familiar melodies at a slow tempo improved accuracy on both the pitch and time dimension

s

Higher accuracy, mostly in the pitch dimension, when singers produced melodies on a syllable as compared to singing with lyrics