The influences of familiarity and key on pitch accuracy in singing

Bibliographic Data

ID20407459
AuthorsRachel M Thompson (0000-0003-1519-8040, University of Maryland, USA, corresponding author), James T Mantell (0000-0002-4379-0247, St. Mary's College of Maryland)
Year2024
Volume28
Issue2
Pages375-387
Publication date2024-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMusicae Scientiae (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1029-8649 • E-ISSN: 2045-4147
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/10298649231207706
OpenAlexW4388463032
LanguageEN
References cited28

Singing is a typical human behavior but individuals vary in pitch accuracy. Poor singing performance can be explained by deficits in translating sensory information to a vocal motor plan or problems encoding or recalling pitch from long-term memory. We compared the sensorimotor translation and long-term memory hypotheses by assessing the influence of familiarity and musical key on singing performance. Thirty participants imitated excerpts of 20 familiar and unfamiliar pop songs presented in their original key or a transposed key. We analyzed pitch accuracy by measuring the difference in pitch between the first two notes of participants’ productions and the target stimuli. Participants sang familiar songs more accurately than unfamiliar songs and songs in their original keys less accurately than songs in transposed keys. The results, based on Bayesian hypothesis testing, provide some support for both memory hypotheses and partially confirm the findings of previous research on singing performance. Importantly, our work suggests that if individuals maintain pitch information in long-term memory, they do not draw on it when imitating songs

Acoustics · Art · Canto · Cognitive psychology · Linguistics · Musical · Singing · Speech recognition · Communication · Computer Science · Music and Audio Processing · Music Technology and Sound Studies · Neuroscience and Music Perception · Psychology

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