Acquired and congenital disorders of sung performance: A review.

Many believe that the majority of people are unable to carry a tune. Yet, this widespread idea underestimates the singing abilities of the layman. Most occasional singers can sing in tune and in time, provided that they perform at a slow tempo. Here we characterize proficient singing in the general population and identify its neuronal underpinnings by reviewing behavioral and neuroimaging studies. In addition, poor singing resulting from a brain injury or neurogenetic disorder (i.e., tone deafness or congenital amusia) is examined. Different lines of evidence converge in indicating that poor singing is not a monolithic deficit. A variety of poor-singing "phenotypes" are described, with or without concurrent perceptual deficits. In addition, particular attention is paid to the dissociations between specific abilities in poor singers (e.g., production of absolute vs. relative pitch, pitch vs. time accuracy). Such diversity of impairments in poor singers can be traced to different faulty mechanisms within the vocal sensorimotor loop, such as pitch perception and sensorimotor integration

withdrawn 2017 hrs ehra ecas aphrs solaece expert consensus statement on catheter and surgical ablation of atrial fibrillation

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Criteria and tools for objectively analysing the vocal accuracy of a popular song

This study aims to validate our method for measuring accuracy in a melodic context. We analysed the popular song “Happy Birthday” sung by 63 occasional and 14 professional singers thanks to AudioSculpt and OpenMusic (Ircam, Paris, France). In terms of evaluation of the pitch interval deviation, we replicated the profile of occasional singers described in the literature (the slower the performance, the more accurate it is). Our results also confirm that the professional singers sing more accurately than occasional singers but not when a Western operatic singing technique is involved. These results support the relevance of our method for analysing vocal accuracy of occasional and professional singers and led us to discuss adaptations to be implemented for analysing the accuracy of operatic voices