title: Singing proficiency in the general population.
abstract: Most believe that the ability to carry a tune is unevenly distributed in the general population. To test this claim, we asked occasional singers (n=62) to sing a well-known song in both the laboratory and in a natural setting (experiment 1). Sung performances were judged by peers for proficiency, analyzed for pitch and time accuracy with an acoustic-based method, and compared to professional singing. The peer ratings for the proficiency of occasional singers were normally distributed. Only a minority of the occasional singers made numerous pitch errors. The variance in singing proficiency was largely due to tempo differences. Occasional singers tended to sing at a faster tempo and with more pitch and time errors relative to professional singers. In experiment 2 15 nonmusicians from experiment 1 sang the same song at a slow tempo. In this condition, most of the occasional singers sang as accurately as the professional singers. Thus, singing appears to be a universal human trait. However, two of the occasional singers maintained a high rate of pitch errors at the slower tempo. This poor performance was not due to impaired pitch perception, thus suggesting the existence of a purely vocal form of tone deafness.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Psychology, University of Finance and Management in Warsaw, Ul. Pawia 55, 01-030 Warsaw, Poland. sdallabella@vizja.pl
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dalla Bella
authors.forename: Jean-François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Giguère
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Peretz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001076:Aptitude; D003625:Data Collection; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music; D010898:Pitch Perception; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013998:Time Perception; D014833:Voice Quality; D014834:Voice Training