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
- 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