Perception of synchronization in singing ensembles.

Sara D’Amario,Helena Daffern,Freya Bailes

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0218162

Sara D’Amario, Helena Daffern + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218162

Copy DOI

Abstract

Recent investigations analysing synchronization in singing ensembles have shown that the precision of synchronization during singing duo performances is better in the presence of visual contact between the singers than without. Research has also shown that synchronisation improves with practice across rehearsals in a newly formed singing quintet. However, whether listeners’ perceptions of synchronization reflect the different patterns of synchronization that were observed during ensemble performance with and without visual contact and across rehearsals has not yet been investigated. This study aims to analyse the perception of the synchronization associated with altered visual contact and amount of rehearsal during singing duo and quintet performances respectively, for listeners with different levels of musical expertise. A set of fifty-eight singing recordings selected from duo and quintet ensemble performances, collected from previous investigations of interpersonal synchrony, was presented to 33 listeners, including non-experts (university students with little or no music training), performers in the group (singers who performed the pieces used for the study), and other musicians (advanced music students). Participants were required to listen to each trial and judge the level of “togetherness” on a sliding scale from zero to 100. Results show that listeners, irrespective of their musical training and performance experience, perceived differences in the synchronization in the duo tokens depending on the presence/absence of visual contact between singers; on the other hand, the smaller asynchrony patterns measured across rehearsals in the singing quintet recordings were not perceived. This study contributes to our understanding of perceptions of synchronization by individuals with different levels of musical expertise, and underscores the perceptual salience of synchronization, regardless of musical experience.

Highlights

Musicians strive to maintain a high level of synchronization with their co-performer(s) during ensemble performances, timing varies within and between players, establishing small asynchronies between the performers [1]
This study aims to analyse whether listeners’ perceptions of synchronization reflect the different patterns of synchronization that were performed during ensemble performances with and without visual contact and across rehearsals, and whether listeners’ perceptions change with different levels of musical expertise
Prior to the analysis of the perception of synchronization, an initial test was conducted to investigate the effects of the presence/absence of visual contact on the precision of synchronization, based on the subset of duo token data selected for this study from the previous investigation [14]

Summary

Introduction

Musicians strive to maintain a high level of synchronization with their co-performer(s) during ensemble performances, timing varies within and between players, establishing small asynchronies between the performers [1]. Perception of synchronization in singing ensembles listeners without a specialized music training were sensitive to the variability of note onset asynchrony and degree of correction gain, when judging the level of togetherness in quartet performances. As anticipated above, [9] found that musically untrained listeners were not able to discriminate the temporal order of pure tones, complex harmonic, or acoustic piano tones, while Wing et al [11] reported that non-experts were sensitive to the degree of asynchrony when judging the level of togetherness in string quartet performances. Do the differences in the asynchrony, physically measured in the singing ensemble performances in D’Amario et al [14,15] and resulting from altered visual contact and degree of rehearsals, reflect the perception of synchronization by listeners with a variety of levels of musical experience?. Differences between asynchronies might not be perceived if the asynchronies in themselves are shorter than the threshold for perception

Participants

Design

Procedure

Results

Discussion and conclusions