A new study has suggested that singing accurately is not so much a talent as a learned skill that can decline over time if not used.
The study conducted at Northwestern University showed that the ability to sing on key may have more in common with the kind of practice that goes into playing an instrument than people realize.
Lead researcher Steven Demorest, a professor of music education at Northwestern's Bienen School of Music, asserted that no one expects a beginner on violin to sound good right away, it takes practice, but everyone is supposed to be able to sing and when people are unsuccessful they take it very personally, but they think if one sing more, then one will get better.
The study compared the singing accuracy of three groups i.e. kindergarteners, sixth graders and college-aged adults. One test asked the volunteers to listen to four repetitions of a single pitch and then sing back the sequence. Another asked them to sing back at intervals.
The study showed considerable improvement in accuracy from kindergarten to late elementary school, when most children are receiving regular music instruction. But in the adult group, the gains were reversed to the point that college students performed at the level of the kindergarteners on two of the three tasks, suggesting the "use it or lose it" effect.
Singing on key is likely easier for some people than others. "But it's also a skill that can be taught and developed, and much of it has to do with using the voice regularly," Demorest said. "Our study suggests that adults who may have performed better as children lost the ability when they stopped singing."
In general, older children sing more accurately than younger ones but there's little or no data on children between 12 and 18 years old, an especially formative period, when voices change and there's high interest in concerts and other forms of musical expression. Also, researchers cannot rely on a universal definition of what constitutes accurate singing; no reliable measure exists.
To overcome this problem, Demorest and study co-author, Peter Pfordresher, director of the Auditory Perception and Action Lab at the University at Buffalo in New York, have spearheaded an effort to create an online measure of singing accuracy. Music teachers will be able to use the tool to help struggling children, and adults can test their singing ability.
Teens and adults need to have low-stakes opportunities in music that don't require the commitment of time that playing in a band or an orchestra does, something similar to the Can't Sing Choirs that have sprung up in the U.K., Demorest said.
The story is published in a special February issue of the journal Music Perception.
