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Abstract

The benefit of an external focus of attention in motor skill learning has been documented in a variety of studies conducted over the past 15 years, but few investigations have examined this benefit in music contexts. We tested differences in tone quality among different focus of attention conditions performed by 30 novice singers. Each participant sang a 3-note pattern a cappella on a continuous [a] vowel under five conditions, each focusing the singer's attention on a different target: (a) singing while feeling the vibrations on the throat with the palm of one hand, (b) singing with the index and middle fingers placed on either side of the nose, directing the sound to the fingertips, (c) directing the sound to a microphone; (d) directing the sound to a point on the wall across the room; and (e) a baseline condition in which we gave no focus instructions.

All participants started with the baseline condition and then performed the remaining conditions in a partially counterbalanced order (Latin square) assigned randomly to each participant. To inhibit memory from one condition to the next, participants read aloud a short passage from a children's book between conditions (approximately one minute for each reading). We analyzed a 2-second excerpt from the last tone of each trial in each condition (15 trials per participant) using the acoustical software Praat.

We found a significant effect of condition on vocal quality, as determined by the ratings of expert listeners, χ^sup 2^ (16, N = 150) = 76.33, p < 0.0001, Cramer's V = 0.36. As expected, not all participants were affected by conditions to an equal extent. Individual singers' best tone qualities were observed in the mask and microphone conditions more frequently than in the other four conditions.

Keywords

focus of attention, singing tone production, motor skill learning, vocal pedagogy

Learning to sing beautifully requires careful attention to posture, physical movement, breath, and sound. One role of the teacher is to focus learners' attention optimally among the many different sensory dimensions of singing. Teaching singing is difficult because the physical manipulations that change the tone quality of the voice are often outside the conscious control of the learner, requiring the instructor to connect physical sensation to the perceived sound.

The singer's...

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