Establishing an empirical profile of self-defined “tone deafness”: Perception, singing performance and self-assessment

Abstract

Research has suggested that around 17% of Western adults self-define as "tone deaf" (Cuddy, Balkwill, Peretz & Holden, 2005). But questions remain about the exact nature of tone deafness. One candidate for a formal definition is "congenital amusia" , characterised by a dense music-specific perceptual deficit. However, most people self-defining as tone deaf are not congenitally amusic (Cuddy et al., 2005). According to Sloboda, Wise and Peretz (2005), the general population defines tone deafness as perceived poor singing ability, suggesting the need to extend investigations to production abilities and self-perceptions. The present research aims to discover if self-defined tone deaf people show any pattern of musical difficulties relative to controls, and to offer possible explanations for them (e.g. perceptual, cognitive, productive, motivational). 13 self-reporting "tone deaf" (TD) and 17 self-reporting "not tone deaf" (NTD) participants were assessed on a range of measures for musical perception, cognition, memory, production and self-ratings of performance. This paper reports on four measures to assess perception (Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia), vocal production (songs and pitch-matching) and self-report. Results showed that the TD group performed significantly less well than the NTD group in all measures, but did not demonstrate the dense deficits characteristic of "congenital amusics". Singing performance was influenced by context, with both groups performing better when accompanied than unaccompanied. The TD group self-rated the accuracy of their singing significantly lower than the NTD group, but not disproportionately so, and were less confident in their vocal quality. The TD participants are not facing an insurmountable difficulty, but are likely to improve with targeted intervention.

Singing and Its Neuronal Substrates: Evidence from the General Population

“…Most occasional singers successfully imitated melodies (i.e., produced pitches were within + 1 semitone from the target pitches). Accuracy was affected by melody complexity (i.e., pitches in the context of melodies were reproduced more poorly compared with sequences including just one interval; for similar results, see Wise & Sloboda, 2008). In sum, occasional singers are more accurate than previously expected in imitating novel pitch sequences.…”

“…The observation that poor singing occurs more often (10-15%) in the general population than congenital amusia (approximately 4%) suggests that some individuals, despite normal perceptual abilities, may still be poor singers . This dissociation between perception and performance is supported by a growing body of evidence (Bradshaw & McHenry, 2005;Dalla Bella et al, 2007;Pfordresher & Brown, 2007;Wise & Sloboda, 2008). For example, in a recent study we described two occasional singers who, in spite of their markedly inaccurate production of pitch intervals (i.e., they deviated by more than one semitone from the notated intervals), normally detected pitch and time incongruities in unfamiliar melodies (Dalla Bella et al, 2007).…”

“…This finding may lead to the conclusion that occasional singers are indeed very inaccurate in imitating singles pitches. Yet higher accuracy (i.e., below 0.5 semitones) was obtained when pitches to be imitated were synthesised voices or sung productions (Pfordresher & Brown, 2007;Wise & Sloboda, 2008).…”

“…Indeed, there is presently no generally accepted standard for the analysis of sung performance. A common method for estimating singing proficiency is to ask peers (e.g., musicians) to assess participants' renditions (Alcock et al, 2000;Hébert et al, 2003;Racette et al, 2006;Schön et al, 2004;Wise & Sloboda, 2008). This method, albeit time-efficient, has several drawbacks.…”

“…Some 13% of the participants were classified as poor pitch singers (i.e., they transposed the pitches to be imitated by + 1 semitone). Yet, they performed as accurately as proficient singers in a pitch discrimination task (see also Wise & Sloboda, 2008).…”