Imprecise singing is widespread

Pfordresher, Peter Q.; Brown, Steven; Meier, Kimberly; Belyk, Michel; Liotti, Mario

doi:10.1121/1.3478782

Cited by 89 publications

(169 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…This criterion was based on categorizations of poor-pitch singers reported elsewhere (cf. Dalla Bella, Giguere, & Peretz, 2007;Pfordresher & Brown, 2007;Pfordresher, Brown, Meier, Belyk, & Liotti, 2010). The experimenter coded each trial as in tune if the majority of sampled f0 values were within these boundaries and out of tune if not.…”

Section: Vocal Imitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory imagery and the poor-pitch singer

Pfordresher

Halpern

2013

Psychon Bull Rev

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The vocal imitation of pitch by singing requires one to plan laryngeal movements on the basis of anticipated target pitch events. This process may rely on auditory imagery, which has been shown to activate motor planning areas. As such, we hypothesized that poor-pitch singing, although not typically associated with deficient pitch perception, may be associated with deficient auditory imagery. Participants vocally imitated simple pitch sequences by singing, discriminated pitch pairs on the basis of pitch height, and completed an auditory imagery self-report questionnaire (the Bucknell Auditory Imagery Scale). The percentage of trials participants sung in tune correlated significantly with self-reports of vividness for auditory imagery, although not with the ability to control auditory imagery. Pitch discrimination was not predicted by auditory imagery scores. The results thus support a link between auditory imagery and vocal imitation.

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Section: Vocal Imitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory imagery and the poor-pitch singer

Pfordresher

Halpern

2013

Psychon Bull Rev

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“…Performance on pitch matching and song singing has been found to be moderately correlated in a sample of kindergarteners (Demorest & Nichols, 2012) and highly correlated in a sample of adults (Pfordresher et al, 2010). Pfordresher and Brown (2007) suggested that single pitch, interval, and pattern tasks vary in terms of complexity because of the number of unique pitches they contain and varied in memory demand because of the total number of notes that they contain.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Play songs and folk songs have been the test stimuli for many children's studies (Apfelstadt, 1984;Brophy, 1997;Flowers & Dunn-Sousa, 1990;Gault, 2002;Goetze, 1985;Green, 1994;Guerrini, 2006;Guilbault, 2004;Joyner, 1969;Muse, 1993;Roberts & Davies, 1975;Smith, 1973;Welch et al, 1997;Western, 2002;Wurgler, 1990;Young, 1971). Studies of singing in adults have used similar songs, such as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (Pfordresher, Brown, Meier, Belyk, & Liotti, 2010), Row-Row-Row Your Boat (McCoy, 1997Pfordresher et al, 2010), Jingle Bells Pfordresher et al, 2010), Brother John , Gens du Pays, Quebecois birthday song (Dalla Bella, Giguère, & Peretz, 2007), Happy Birthday (Pfordresher et al, 2010 ), a Polish happy birthday song , America (Phillips & Vispoel, 1990;Watts, Moore, & McCaghren, 2005), and O Music (Phillips & Vispoel, 1990).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Researchers in psychology have examined singing accuracy in normal (Dalla Dalla Bella, Giguère, & Peretz, 2007;Pfordresher et al, 2010) and deficient Bradshaw & McHenry, 2005;Cuddy, 2005;Martinez-Castilla & Sotillo, 2008;Sloboda, 2005) adult samples, and Pfordresher and Brown (2007) proposed four causes of "poor pitch" singing. First, they suggested that deficits in singing are caused by a motor control problem: some individuals have not coordinated their voices to correspond with what they hear.…”

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Task-Based Variability in Children’s Singing Accuracy

Nichols

2016

Journal of Research in Music Education

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Task-based Variability in Children's Singing Accuracy Bryan E. Nichols Chair of the Supervisory Committee:Professor Steven M. Demorest School of MusicThe purpose of this study was to explore task-based variability in children's singing accuracy performance. The research questions were:1. Does children's singing accuracy vary based on the nature of the singing assessment employed?2. Is there a hierarchy of difficulty and discrimination ability among singing assessment tasks?3. What is the interrelationship among different tasks and how few tasks might be employed in a comprehensive measure of accurate singing?A 2 X 4 factorial design was used to examine the performance of 4 th grade children (n = 120) in both solo and doubled response conditions. Every child sang four task types:solo pitch, interval, pattern, and the song Jingle Bells. To account for the effect of tonal memory, test items in all tasks were presented in four total pitches by an adult female vocal model. Each task type contained five items, and the fifth item replicated the first to provide a measure of stability. Scoring was done by the researcher and one other judge with high reliability. Pitch matching was scored dichotomously and song singing was scored using an eight-point scale. Data were transformed to a 0-1 scale to express difficulty and discrimination indices. !The results indicated that there was significant task-based variability in children's singing accuracy. Difficulty levels varied by task type, with patterns and songs indicating lower performance than single pitches and intervals. Performance was significantly higher for all tasks in the doubled condition than in the solo condition, and a significant interaction indicated task-based performance varied by response mode.Students who indicated a history of private lessons (n = 54) evidenced significantly higher performance than those without. !An exploratory factor analysis demonstrated that all tasks load onto one factor.Internal reliability was satisfactory, and the results suggest that a minimum of three items can be included in each task in future research for a reliability coefficient of .75, or a minimum of four items for a coefficient greater than .80. These singing tasks were significantly inter-correlated, and the easiest item was also lowest in range. Vocal scooping and its implications for singing accuracy assessment were discussed. !The three main findings were that doubled singing was more accurate than solo singing, summative assessment should include as many task types as is feasible, and within-and between-student performance should be compared using the same task type. Future research should explore variables affecting differing variability between lower-and higher-performing singers. Additionally, there is a relationship between history of private lessons and singing accuracy, and motivation and general musical experience should be explored as mediating or moderating variables so that teachers can best encourage student development. Last, it remains possible ...

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“…Melodic accuracy and precision were measured for a group of 20 subjects using a methodology developed for singing assessment [46]. The task of the subjects was to sing ascending and descending intervals and short melodies as well as possible.…”

Section: Evaluation Of Melodic Accuracy and Precisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cantor Digitalis: chironomic parametric synthesis of singing

Feugère

d’Alessandro

Doval

et al. 2017

J AUDIO SPEECH MUSIC PROC.

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Cantor Digitalis is a performative singing synthesizer that is composed of two main parts: a chironomic control interface and a parametric voice synthesizer. The control interface is based on a pen/touch graphic tablet equipped with a template representing vocalic and melodic spaces. Hand and pen positions, pen pressure, and a graphical user interface are assigned to specific vocal controls. This interface allows for real-time accurate control over high-level singing synthesis parameters. The sound generation system is based on a parametric synthesizer that features a spectral voice source model, a vocal tract model consisting of parallel filters for vocalic formants and cascaded with anti-resonance for the spectral effect of hypo-pharynx cavities, and rules for parameter settings and source/filter dependencies between fundamental frequency, vocal effort, and formants. Because Cantor Digitalis is a parametric system, every aspect of voice quality can be controlled (e.g., vocal tract size, aperiodicities in the voice source, vowels, and so forth). It offers several presets for different voice types. Cantor Digitalis has been played on stage in several public concerts, and it has also been proven to be useful as a tool for voice pedagogy. The aim of this article is to provide a comprehensive technical overview of Cantor Digitalis.

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Imprecise singing is widespread

Cited by 89 publications

References 18 publications

Auditory imagery and the poor-pitch singer

Auditory imagery and the poor-pitch singer

Task-Based Variability in Children’s Singing Accuracy

Cantor Digitalis: chironomic parametric synthesis of singing

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