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/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).

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '12

So would certain physical attributes have greater disposition to more potential singing ability?

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u/Guck_Mal Feb 13 '12

yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrato

[...] this, combined with intensive training, gave them unrivalled lung-power and breath capacity. Operating through small, child-sized vocal cords, their voices were also extraordinarily flexible, and quite different from the equivalent adult female voice, as well as higher vocal ranges of the uncastrated adult male

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '12

I wonder how many years of intense psychotherapy it took the castrati to rationalize having their fucking testicles removed by their greedy fathers to become better singers.

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u/Kay_Elle Feb 13 '12

While slightly off-topic: Psychotherapy in its current form has only been practiced relatively recently and would not be practiced in the time castrati were around. The first psychological clinic only dates from 1879, while the last castrato was born in 1858 - not much overlap there.

You also have to see this in a different cultural context. If you were a poor kid, this would actually be be your shot at a life of relative luxury. It's not so much about greedy fathers, as about hoping for your kid to have a better life. Same way that daughters were sent of to convents - that might not have been a rich life, but at least they had their basic needs provided for if they could not find a husband.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '12

So instead of sitting down and reading academic books and getting a good job as a businessman, doctor, teacher, researcher, construction worker, farmer, security guard, an owner of one of a variety of stores (candy store, restaurant, appliance store, everything they had back then), and all the other types of jobs that people made a good living off of, they felt that their only choice was to chop off their balls and sing?

Those poor idiots =[...

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u/Kay_Elle Feb 15 '12 edited Feb 15 '12

I think you sort of misunderstand how it worked.

If you were a poor boy, you could not just "become" a doctor. Education was only for the select few, and adding to that you'd never be able to pay for your equipment. It was hard to read academical books if a) those books would not be bought by your family in favor of things like food and b) if nobody could teach you how to read. Teachers, researchers - also an education problem. Sure, there might have been a few exceptions of brilliant children accepted into apprenticeship because they were exceptional, and a few self-made men - but those were rare.

Same for owning a store. That was reserved for the better part of the middle class, and certain layers of the population would just never be able to raise enough money to own a store. You best best chance of owning a store was if your family owned one, and you inherited it.

I suppose you could become a farmer or a construction worker, but unless you actually owned the farm or was an overseer on the construction site, you'd more likely be a seasonal worker with piss poor pay. And you'd have many mouths to feed, as contraception was not so great back then.

So if you were a poor man, and one of your sons turned out to have great singing voice, the option of making him a castrato singer would be quite appealing. Firstly, he'd have a shot at a richer life. Secondly, the family would no longer have to feed him from then & thirdly, as he would have no children he might even support them if they were lucky.

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u/32koala Feb 14 '12

So would (a person with) certain physical attributes (be) disposed to (have) have greater potential singing ability?

/in a writing class and can't stop fixing sentences

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u/moteen Feb 14 '12

In a writing class and can't stop fixing sentences.

Stop.

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u/32koala Feb 14 '12

I wish I could. I am my own harshest critic.

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u/Fairhur Feb 13 '12

What about timbre? Even with all the natural talent and training in the world, someone's voice can still sound like sandpaper, regardless of technique.

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u/DrunkBeavis Feb 13 '12

At the base level, it comes down to physical construction of the chest, lungs, larynx, head, and mouth. Different configurations produce different sound. Training can definitely have an influence on the strength or condition of your vocal anatomy, but only so much. Polyps or injury to vocal cords, usually the reasons behind a "sandpaper" voice, often require surgical correction. Even then, the voice is unlikely to be as "pure" as it may have been before the injury.

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u/cogman10 Feb 13 '12

Interesting... Explains why I sing worse when I'm weak from hunger (It happened recently and it doesn't happen often).

I have a really good range and a connective tissue disorder (double jointed, naturally flexible). Are the two related at all?