Perception, Evaluation and Communication of Singing Voices

Abstract

AbstractListening to singing voices is an everyday occurrence for performers and pedagogues, and indeed for every music listener. Expert listeners make rapid judgments about singers’ vocal quality and performance ability based on a single performance and use their perception of the overall quality to determine the vocal and technical processes involved in the production of the sound. In the singing studio, pedagogues monitor incremental and subtle changes in vocal quality throughout the training process and this enables them to tailor an appropriate technical and aesthetic program to each student.Listeners’ expertise is vital to music performance research and perceptual studies of the singing voice have drawn on expert listeners’ aural acuity to corroborate and provide a framework for empirical studies of the singing voice and are vital to their ongoing integrity. Listeners possess tacit knowledge about performers’ sound, yet little is known about how listeners process sensory information from a singer to conceptualise, recognise and verbalise the sound they hear. In describing sound, listeners focus on the more easily articulated technical and visual aspects of the performance, which are more easily articulated and generally avoid describing the overall sound of the singer.This chapter will trace the development of three perceptual singing projects which examine the way in which listeners hear singing voices and the means by which they communicate them. It will reflect on recent empirical studies which aim to harness this expertise to evaluate singing and understand the limitations of language to communicate sound. Finally, it will propose future directions for perceptual studies to ensure they are relevant, accessible and applicable to singing pedagogy.KeywordsMusic performanceMusic perceptionSinging voiceSinging trainingVerbalisationVerbal overshadowing