Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing through a Shared Digital Repository

Abstract

The domain of research in singing encompasses numerous disciplines, countless styles, and many lifespan stages of skill development. A comprehensive understanding of this domain would benefit from a vast digital repository for storing, accessing, and annotating recordings of singing in all its manifestations. A cross‐cultural strategy for acquiring and storing the essential audio, audiovisual, and symbolic data parallels the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) developed and maintained by Brian MacWhinney (http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/) and used by hundreds of psycholinguistics researchers worldwide. A prototype of a digital repository for singing (http://vre.upei.ca/chimes) is under development using infrastructure at UPEI associated with a Canada Foundation for Innovation project on the enhancement of education through media. The database will support and be supported by an international team aiming to Advance Interdisciplinary Research in Singing (AIRS) on the following themes: (1) acquisition of singing (2) comparison of singing and speech acquisition (3) singing pedagogy (4) singing and intercultural understanding (5) singing and intergenerational understanding (6) singing and well‐being. The breadth of the work of Johan Sundberg, an honoured member of this team, encompasses these themes and exemplifies the international, interdisciplinary scope of the initiative. (Supported by Canada Foundation for Innovation CFI).