There has been a recent surge of research on the topic of poor-pitch singing. However, this research has not addressed an important distinction in measurement: that between accuracy and precision. With respect to singing, accuracy refers to the average difference between sung and target pitches. Precision, by contrast, refers to the consistency of repeated attempts to produce a pitch. A group of 45 non-musician participants was asked to vocally imitate unfamiliar 5-note melodies, as well as to sing a series of familiar melodies from memory (e.g., Happy Birthday). The results showed that singers were more accurate than they were precise, and that a majority of participants could justifiably be categorized as imprecise singers. Accuracy and precision measures were correlated with one another, and conditional-probability analyses suggested that accuracy predicted precision more so than the converse. Finally, performance differences across groups of singers were greater for the imitation of unfamiliar tone sequences than for the recall of familiar melodies.
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October 2010
October 18 2010
Imprecise singing is widespread
Peter Q. Pfordresher;
Peter Q. Pfordresher
a)
Department of Psychology,
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
, 355 Park Hall, Buffalo, New York 14226
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Steven Brown;
Steven Brown
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour,
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada
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Kimberly M. Meier;
Kimberly M. Meier
Department of Psychology,
Simon Fraser University
, RCB 5246, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada
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Michel Belyk;
Michel Belyk
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour,
McMaster University
, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada
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Mario Liotti
Mario Liotti
Department of Psychology,
Simon Fraser University
, RCB 5246, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada
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Peter Q. Pfordresher
a)
Steven Brown
Kimberly M. Meier
Michel Belyk
Mario Liotti
Department of Psychology,
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
, 355 Park Hall, Buffalo, New York 14226a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail: [email protected]
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128, 2182–2190 (2010)
Article history
Received:
December 30 2009
Accepted:
July 18 2010
Citation
Peter Q. Pfordresher, Steven Brown, Kimberly M. Meier, Michel Belyk, Mario Liotti; Imprecise singing is widespread. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 October 2010; 128 (4): 2182–2190. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.3478782
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