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Abstract
Singing is as natural as speaking for the majority of people. Yet some individuals (i.e., 10–15%) are poor singers, typically performing or imitating pitches and melodies inaccurately. This condition, commonly referred to as “tone deafness,” has been observed both in the presence and absence of deficient pitch perception. In this article we review the existing literature concerning normal singing, poor-pitch singing, and, briefly, the sources of this condition. Considering that pitch plays a prominent role in the structure of both music and speech we also focus on the possibility that speech production (or imitation) is similarly impaired in poor-pitch singers. Preliminary evidence from our laboratory suggests that pitch imitation may be selectively inaccurate in the music domain without being affected in speech. This finding points to separability of mechanisms subserving pitch production in music and language.
Highlights
Making music is a universal form of expression, which is widespread across societies and cultures (Mithen, 2006)
To shed light on the functional components of the song system underlying normal pitch production in the execution of the aforementioned tasks, and eventually to account for poor-pitch singing, we present in Figure 1 a schema of the vocal sensorimotor loop (VSL; see Berkowska and Dalla Bella, 2009b)
In a recent study we showed that poor-pitch singing and perceptual deficits are in general associated in congenital amusia (Dalla Bella et al, 2009)
Summary
In this article we review the existing literature concerning normal singing, poor-pitch singing, and, briefly, the sources of this condition. Considering that pitch plays a prominent role in the structure of both music and speech we focus on the possibility that speech production (or imitation) is impaired in poor-pitch singers. Preliminary evidence from our laboratory suggests that pitch imitation may be selectively inaccurate in the music domain without being affected in speech. This finding points to separability of mechanisms subserving pitch production in music and language
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