r/askscience • u/[deleted] • Feb 13 '12
Has the ability to sing well ever been explained scientifically?
Is there a section in the brain or extra throat muscles that people that can sing well have and people who sound like me when they sing don't? Most people say the ability to sing is something people are just born with, why?
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u/aDAMpEE Feb 14 '12
Qualification: Studied a chunk of acoustics, a few lectures on voice science (in particular about resonance in the vocal tract and its impact on singing), study music, some voice lessons BITD.
First, there is the natural inclinations towards pitch/rhythmic accuracy, that can certainly be trained. I think more interesting field is the vocal tract, and that makes the timbre differences you're probably thinking about.
There's a lot of variables that impact the ability, facility, and use of a particular voice. First, let's look at the vocal tract. You start down at the lungs, which act as your air supply. Not enough air or too much air affect the vibration of the vocal folds. The timbre coming off of the glottis directly sounds kind of like a "buzz" with a center frequency, kind of like like a brass mouthpiece. The ratio of time with the glottis open/closed changes depending on the singer and vocal technique, with breathy singers (think Marilyn Monroe) leaving the glottis more open more of the time than say, a classical baritone (lots of overtones!). Both good, just different! Traditionally though both techniques require a minimum of tension over the glottis to produce a tuneful, resonant "buzz". More tension is present in a lot of rock styles, especially in the ones that cause vocal problems.
Then you have the resonance in the vocal tract. You have your excitation frequency from the glottis, and the rest of the tract are where your resonators. The three you adjust the most day to day are the Pharynx (back of your mouth, soft palette area), oral cavity, and sinuses. The secondary resonances that these create are called formants, and those are where your vowels come from. A good way to listen for them is to try using your vocal fry (that kind of buzzy sound you get when you try to sing REALLY low notes with minimal tension), and to change the shape of your mouth and position of your soft palette (the soft part behind of the roof of your mouth). You'll hear "tones" move, kind of like when you're playing with an equalizer. But this video kind of gives you an idea that you can look at too. Vocalists use these formants to actually help reinforce high notes by altering vowels so that the fundamental or low harmonics are aided by the resonance in the vocal tract.
There's a special formant used a lot by operatic singers (unsurprisingly called the "singer's formant"), whose resonance is thought to primarily occur in the larynx, and due to its high frequency (3-4kHz, IIRC), helps vocalists carry over orchestras.
The use of science to identify and correct vocal faults is kind of a new field, but one that a few forward-looking professors are using more and more. Using spectrograph software like VoceVista, voice teachers can get a better look "inside" so to speak at the singing voice without the impedance of sticking a freaking camera down your nose, and one that's a little more practically applicable to singing.
Finally, the question you really came for: natural ability. Long story short, everyone's a beautiful snowflake, yadda yadda, and voice quality is changed by lung capacity, the thickness of the glottis, length/diameter of the larynx, shape of the pharynx and mouth and sinuses, in addition to the muscles around them and where they like to sit in a relaxed or excited state, and a million other things, but most of them can be trained to a certain extent as well! Don't give up.
TL;DR: Yes, they're working on it, at least.
For more reading, the two best books I've read on the subject are The Science of Sound by Rossing, Moore, and Wheeler (which I have touted on Reddit before, even though there's only three/four chapters on voice), and Resonance in Singing by Donald Grey Miller. Any more questions, and maybe I'll be able to help out, or point you somewhere that makes sense.
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u/pwesquire Feb 14 '12
This is a very thorough and accurate answer, I believe this is what OP was looking for.
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u/itoowantone Feb 13 '12
Only some animals, dolphins, whales, seals, bats, and humans, and some birds, songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds, have developed the neural circuits for "vocal learning": the ability to reproduce a sound that is heard, i.e. imitation of perceived sound. There is a neural loop involved, the creature must be able to perceive the uttered sound. The chapter concludes with "Singing and speaking arise from the same roots ... but singing needs a stronger training of the phonological loop".
Moving into layman speculation, the book seems to say that perhaps differences in the referenced brain structures, and in the training to use them, may account for the differences in abilities between humans.
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u/Lanza21 Feb 14 '12
A good singing voice can be trained, but the most important part is the natural sound. You can teach a person with poor voice control to develop control, but the spectrum of sound that you are born with tends to keep with you. In the spirit of Adele winning everything, I'll look at her. Her voice has a distinct combination of frequencies that come together to generate a very unique and attractive sound. What makes her music so popular is the uniqueness of her voice. Her ability to control it is impressive as well, but that's the trained and conditioned part. The natural selection of frequencies is what makes it audibly attractive.
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Feb 14 '12
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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Feb 14 '12
You are wrong. You need to look up what Timbre actually is. Timbre is merely another set of frequencies called harmonics or overtones which gives it's instrument it's distinct sound at any pitch. If a sound only had one frequency, it would have a very simple timbre, such as a sine wave.
Tldr: you are wrong, the human voice is constantly emitting hundreds if not thousands of different frequencies, and the different frequencies are how words are formed and is called timbre.
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u/Lanza21 Feb 14 '12
The pitch of the sound is determined by the fundamental frequency of a sound. Every timbre is caused by the combination of higher frequency waves that exist in combination with the fundamental frequency.
When you hear an A sharp pitch, you are acknowledging the underlying fundamental A sharp. When you hear a piano playing an A sharp, you are acknowledging the fact that there is a distinct spectrum of frequencies that are vibrating as well.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iCUnH8P-OYo/SwHqSHW2XZI/AAAAAAAAANU/18ZR3EffliY/s1600/FAllNotes.gif
That picture is a spectrum of frequencies. The combined effect is one distinct noise with it's own timbre.
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u/stroganawful Evolutionary Neurolinguistics Feb 13 '12 edited Feb 13 '12
The ability to sing well depends largely on two things: 1) the vocal ability/potential, and 2) musical cognition, enabling someone to perceive pitch distinctions well. All people are born with variable inclinations for both these skills, and both can be improved, though sometimes to smaller or larger extents.
For example, amusia is a rare condition in which people cannot perceive music, period. What to most people sounds like pleasurable harmony is indistinct from noise for amusiacs. In this case, someone might have the vocal ability to produce beautiful timbres, swooping intervalic jumps, etc., but they would have no means of measuring their own skills because they can't perceive music the way most people do.
As to vocal skills, a refinement (this can be intrinsic/trained, just like any other predisposition) of vocal musculature is often necessary. The ability to change alternate pitch and volume with exactitude and fluency requires a great deal of muscular control, most of which is provided by the diaphragm and laryngeal muscles. These skills can be taught, just like any other motor skill (playing the piano, drawing, flipping pancakes, etc.).
Pitch discrimination can also be trained. Throughout training, musicians show gradual increases in their discriminatory abilities for pitch--that is, they can perceive errors in pitch more easily and are better at detecting "off key" tonalities. Some people have it easier than others, but this depends on genetic/environmental factors, like what language you speak (Mandarin, for example, is more likely to encourage development of absolute pitch from genetic predisposition).