Waarom zingen sommige mensen vals? [Dutch]

Beeld ThinkStock

[Bron: Volkskrant en De Morgen.]

Als je ontzettend vals zingt, kan dat meerdere oorzaken hebben. Zoals een slechte werking van je stemspieren, of een slechte ademtechniek. “Soms hebben mensen gewoon geen controle over hun stem”, zegt Henkjan Honing, hoogleraar muziekcognitie. “Met een beetje oefenen gaat dat snel beter. Zangklank wordt vaak ook beter als mensen rustig zijn. Er zijn experimenten gedaan waar ze mensen vroegen een liedje te zingen in een rustige omgeving en op straat. In een rustige studio klonk het vele malen beter: mensen hebben dan meer controle, omdat ze ontspannen zijn.”. [Dalla Bella et al., 2007]

Meestal weten mensen van zichzelf wel of ze kunnen zingen of niet. Maar aan talentenjachten zoals Idols of The Voice doen vaak amateurs mee die geen zuivere noot halen, terwijl ze er zelf van overtuigd zijn dat ze de sterren van de hemel zingen. Horen ze die valse klanken dan niet? Honing: “Er zijn mensen die tonen anders horen dan anderen, die hebben de aandoening amusia, oftewel toondoofheid. Dat komt niet zo vaak voor: eerst werd geschat dat zo’n 4 procent van de wereldbevolking het had, nu ligt die schatting op 1,5 procent.” [Peretz, 2016].

Toondoofheid is een aandoening die voortkomt uit een afwijkende verwerking van geluiden in de hersenen. De hersenen kunnen de tonen wel goed registreren, maar de frontale hersenkwab krijgt geen toegang tot de juiste toonhoogte-informatie. Onderzoekers van Harvard Medical School maakten hersenscans van twintig mensen, van wie de helft toondoof was. Uit de studie bleek dat de toondoven een minder sterke verbinding van zenuwvezels hadden tussen hun frontale en temporale hersenkwab. Die verbinding speelt een belangrijke rol bij het luisteren naar muziek en het produceren van bijpassende klanken. Bij een gebrekkige verbinding tussen die twee hersengebieden kun je zelf dus niet horen of je de juiste tonen zingt.

Toondoofheid is deels een erfelijke aandoening. “Je ziet het terugkomen in families. Maar er zijn ook gevallen van mensen die het in hun latere leven oplopen, bijvoorbeeld door hersenletsel”, zegt Honing. Een vergelijkbare aandoening is maatdoofheid. “Mensen kunnen dan ritmes niet goed horen – ze kunnen een wals of een mars nog niet uit elkaar houden. Het is een bijzondere aandoening, we hebben nu een stuk of zes mensen gevonden die het hebben. Het mechanisme is vergelijkbaar met dat van toondoofheid: hersenen kunnen wel het ritme oppikken, maar er is geen bewuste toegang tot de juiste maatinformatie in de hersenen. Het lukt mensen dan echt niet om op de maat te dansen of muziek te maken.” [Mathias et al., 2016]

Kun je iets tegen toondoofheid doen? “De toegang naar het bewustzijn van tonen is niet te repareren. Er wordt nu wel in detail uitgezocht of het effect van die gebrekkige hersenverbinding te verminderen valt via het beloningssysteem: door muziek te maken wordt er dopamine aangemaakt, en als je toondoven overhaalt om actief samen te zingen of muziek te maken, dan zou die hersenverbinding iets beter kunnen functioneren”, zegt Honing. [cf. Peretz, 2016]

Alle smeekbedes om te stoppen met zingen negeren en gewoon doorgaan dus. “Als je het leuk maakt voor toondoven, valt er een hoop te halen”, aldus Honing.

Bron: Volkskrant en De Morgen.

Dalla Bella, S., Deutsch, D., Giguère, J.-F., Peretz, I., & Deutsch, D. (2007). Singing proficiency in the general population. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 121(2), 1182–1189. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2427111

Mathias, B., Lidji, P., Honing, H., Palmer, C., & Peretz, I. (2016). Electrical Brain Responses to Beat Irregularities in Two Cases of Beat Deafness. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 10(40), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2016.00040

Peretz, I. (2016). Neurobiology of Congenital Amusia. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(11), 857–867. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.09.002

Abnormalities in later cognitive stages of beat processing?

Mathieu in 2012 (Dutch Tv).

A few years ago I reported on the start of a series of experiments with Mathieu, a case of congenital beat deafness (Phillips-Silver et al., 2011; see here). The paper reporting on that work just came out:

"Beat deafness, a recently documented form of congenital amusia, provides a unique window into functional specialization of neural circuitry for the processing of musical stimuli: Beat-deaf individuals exhibit deficits that are specific to the detection of a regular beat in music and the ability to move along with a beat. Studies on the neural underpinnings of beat processing in the general population suggest that the auditory system is capable of pre-attentively generating a predictive model of upcoming sounds in a rhythmic pattern, subserved largely within auditory cortex and reflected in mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3 event-related potential (ERP) components. The current study examined these neural correlates of beat perception in two beat-deaf individuals, Mathieu and Marjorie, and a group of control participants under conditions in which auditory stimuli were either attended or ignored. Compared to control participants, Mathieu demonstrated reduced behavioral sensitivity to beat omissions in metrical patterns, and Marjorie showed a bias to identify irregular patterns as regular. ERP responses to beat omissions reveal an intact pre-attentive system for processing beat irregularities in cases of beat deafness, reflected in the MMN component, and provide partial support for abnormalities in later cognitive stages of beat processing, reflected in an unreliable P3b component exhibited by Mathieu – but not Marjorie – compared to control participants. P3 abnormalities observed in the current study resemble P3 abnormalities exhibited by individuals with pitch-based amusia, and are consistent with attention or auditory-motor coupling accounts of deficits in beat perception." (Mathias et al., 2016)

Phillips-Silver, J., Toiviainen, P., Gosselin, N., Piché, O., Nozaradan, S., Palmer, C., & Peretz, I. (2011). Born to dance but beat deaf: A new form of congenital amusia Neuropsychologia DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.02.002

Mathias, B., Lidji, P., Honing, H., Palmer, C., & Peretz, I. (2016). Electrical brain responses to beat irregularities in two cases of beat deafness. Frontiers in Neuroscience. DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2016.00040.

Why do all the songs sound the same?

Lauren Stewart

The next SMART Cognitive Science Lecture on 5 April 1013 will be presented by Lauren Stewart (Goldsmiths, University of London) 
on the topic of Congenital Amusia and will be introduced by Gábor Háden (UvA).

The ability to make sense of musical sound has been observed in every culture since the beginning of recorded history. In early infancy, it allows us to respond to the sing-song interactions from a primary caregiver and to engage in musical play. In later life it shapes our social and cultural identities and modulates our affective and emotional states. But a few percent of the population fail to develop the ability to make sense of or engage with music. Individuals with congenital amusia cannot recognize familiar tunes, cannot tell one tune from another, frequently complain that music sounds like a “din” and avoid the many social situations in which music plays a role. In her talk Lauren Stewart will present data from perceptual experiments suggesting that individuals with amusia are insensitive to pitch direction and are unable to retain pitch information in memory. In addition, she will discuss ongoing genetic and neuroimaging approaches that we are using to characterize this disorder. The study of disordered musical development sets in sharp relief the perceptual and cognitive abilities which most of us take for granted and give us a unique chance to investigate how musical perceptual ability develops, from the level of the gene to the brain development and the emergence of a complex and fundamental human behavior.

More information on time, location, and the full program see SMART website.

Stewart, L. (2011). Characterizing congenital amusia The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64 (4), 625-638 DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2011.552730

A case of congenital beat deafness? [revisited]

Mathieu, apparently lacking a sense of beat.

Isabelle Peretz, co-director of the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), told me about Mathieu during a workshop at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in November 2009. She was very excited, and was pretty sure she found a 'beat-deaf' person. I couldn’t but share her enthusiasm. In Phillips-Silver et al. (2011) Peretz and her team wrote:

'Mathieu was discovered through a recruitment of subjects who felt they could not keep the beat in music, such as in clapping in time at a concert or dancing in a club. Mathieu was the only clear-cut case among volunteers who reported these problems. Despite a lifelong love of music and dancing, and musical training including lessons over several years in various instruments, voice, dance and choreography, Mathieu complained that he was unable to find the beat in music. Participation in music and dance activities, while pleasurable, had been difficult for him.'

About one year later her group published a journal paper presenting some behavioral evidence that Mathieu was a case of congenital beat deafness.

The questions posted in a blog entry just after the publication of that study resulted in a collaboration in which, next to behavioral, also direct electrophysiological methods were used. Pascale Lidji (also associated with BRAMS) initiated an EEG/ERP experiment, modeled after our earlier Amsterdam experiments, to directly probe Mathieu’s apparent beat-deafness.

Last winter, just a few weeks after the experiments, we had a teleconference discussing the first experimental results (filmed by a Dutch TV crew following our work). The first results suggested that Mathieu’s brain did pick-up the beat, but his conscious perception did not, as several behavioral experiments confirmed. Intriguing, to say the least. And the results will hopefully be published later this year.

See below for some fragments from the teleconference:



For more the documentary De man zonder ritme, see the website of NPO3.

Phillips-Silver, J., Toiviainen, P., Gosselin, N., Piché, O., Nozaradan, S., Palmer, C., & Peretz, I. (2011). Born to dance but beat deaf: A new form of congenital amusia Neuropsychologia DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.02.002

Interested in a postdoc position in music cognition?

Barbara Tillmann

The Lyon Neuroscience Research Center is seeking applicants for a 2-year post-doctoral position that integrates into our research project on congenital amusia funded by the French National Agency of Research. The post-doctoral researcher will work with Barbara Tillmann (Auditory Cognition and Psychoacoustics team) and Anne Caclin (Brain Dynamics and Cognition team) at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, and will conduct behavioral and EEG/MEG experiments investigating the cognitive and neural correlates of this musical deficit.

For information on how to apply, see the website of the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center.

A case of congenital beat deafness? [Part 2]

Isabelle Peretz, Co-director of the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), told me about Mathieu during a workshop at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in November 2009. She was very excited, and I couldn’t but share her enthusiasm: She was pretty sure she found a beat-deaf person.

'Mathieu was discovered through a recruitment of subjects who felt they could not keep the beat in music, such as in clapping in time at a concert or dancing in a club. Mathieu was the only clear-cut case among volunteers who reported these problems. Despite a lifelong love of music and dancing, and musical training including lessons over several years in various instruments, voice, dance and choreography, Mathieu complained that he was unable to find the beat in music. Participation in music and dance activities, while pleasurable, had been difficult for him.' (from Phillips-Silver et al., 2011)

About one year later her group published a journal paper presenting some behavioral evidence that Mathieu was a case of congenital beat deafness.

The questions posted in a blog entry just after the publication of that study resulted in a collaboration in which next to behavioral also direct electrophysiological methods were used. Pascale Lidji (also associated with BRAMS) did an EEG/ERP experiment, modeled after our earlier Amsterdam experiments, to directly probe Mathieu’s apparent beat-deafness.

Last week we had a teleconference discussing the first experimental results (filmed by a Dutch TV crew following our work). These suggest that Mathieu’s brain did pick-up the beat, but his conscious perception did not, as several behavioral experiments confirmed. Intriguing, to say the least.

See below for some fragments from the teleconference:


And the trailer announcing the tv program to be broadcasted next week:


For more information, see the Labyrint tv website.

N.B. There will be a live broadcasted napraatsessie that can be viewed at www.labyrint.nl.

Phillips-Silver, J., Toiviainen, P., Gosselin, N., Piché, O., Nozaradan, S., Palmer, C., & Peretz, I. (2011). Born to dance but beat deaf: A new form of congenital amusia Neuropsychologia DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.02.002

A case of congenital beat deafness?

Of most people that claim things like ‘Oh, but I’m not musical at all’, ‘I’m hopeless at keeping a tune’ or ‘I have no sense of rhythm’, only a small percentage turn out to be unmusical. The condition is known as amusia, and those who suffer from it are literally music-deficient. It is a rather exceptional, mostly inherited condition that comprises a range of handicaps in recognising or reproducing melodies and rhythms. It has been estimated that about 4 per cent of the people in Western Europe and North America have problems in this direction, to a greater or lesser degree. The most common handicap is tone-deafness or dysmelodia: the inability or difficulty in hearing the difference between two separate melodies.

To diagnose amusia, the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) has been developed. This test is available online – but wait a while before trying it out :-) People who say: ‘I can’t hold a note,’ ‘I sing out of tune,’ or ‘I have no sense of rhythm,’ are not necessarily suffering from amusia. Such people often confuse poor singing or dancing skills with the absence of a sense of hearing differences in melodies and rhythms. For instance, clapping a complex rhythm or dancing to the music requires quite some practice. Nevertheless, almost all of us can hear the differences between rhythms. It has been established that, even in people who are diagnosed as being tone-deaf, about half of them have a normal sense for rhythm (Peretz & Hyde, 2003).

Jessica Phillips-Silver (Université de Montréal, Canada) and a dream-team of music cognition experts found a person that claims to have truly no sense for rhythm, or, more precisely, is apparently deaf to hearing regularity in music. They describe their results in an upcoming issue of Neuropsychologia.

All tests presented in this intriguing study indeed hint at a person that has a true deficit in picking up the regularity in music (the ‘beat’ or regular pulse).

However, as with other studies on beat induction, it has proven to be very difficult to support the presence or absence of this skill on judging overt behavior such as dancing (see earlier entries on, e.g., Snowball). The study presents one (non-standard) perceptual test on beat perception, and I’m surprised the researchers did not use a relatively simple and far more direct test to see if beat induction is present or absent in this participant, such as the MMN paradigm used in work with newborns (e.g., Honing et al., 2009) or other recent studies making use of brain imaging methods. Would make a great follow-up paper.*

Phillips-Silver, J., Toiviainen, P., Gosselin, N., Piché, O., Nozaradan, S., Palmer, C., & Peretz, I. (2011). Born to dance but beat deaf: A new form of congenital amusia Neuropsychologia DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.02.002

Peretz, I. & Hyde, K. (2003). What is specific to music processing? Insights from congenital amusia Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7 (8), 362-367 DOI: 10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00150-5

Honing, H., Ladinig, O., Háden, G., & Winkler, I. (2009). Is Beat Induction Innate or Learned? Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1169 (1), 93-96 DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04761.x

* In fact, we started working on it this summer (Lidji, Palmer, Honing & Peretz, in preparation)

And what was the symposium like?

I just returned from the UK where the Music, Science and the Brain symposium was held in celebration of the end of the European EmCAP project. (The lectures will be online as vodcasts soon.)

I particularly liked, among others, the presentations of David Huron (Ohio State University, US) and Lauren Stewart (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK).

David Huron was the keynote speaker (delivered by video link from Columbus, Ohio), His talk was entitled: ‘How Music Produces Goose-bumps and Why Listeners Enjoy It’. Paralleling one of the chapters of his recent book ‘Sweet Anticipation’ (MIT Press), he treated the audience on a waterfall of ideas and findings on why and how music elicits physiological reactions like goose bums (or piloerection, as it is formally called). Because the speed of it all, some ideas lacked alternative interpretations or proposals on how to (potentially) falsify them. Nevertheless, I’m a great fan of David. His knowledge of the literature is more than impressive. You should read his book that presents these ideas at a more appropriate pace.

Lauren Stewarts’s talk was on amusia (or tone deafness, see earlier blog), and the question of whether people with amusia are destined to get no pleasure out of music (listening) whatsoever. She discussed a recent study, published earlier this year in Music Perception, on the use and functions of music for people ‘suffering’ from amusia. While people with amusia seem to be mostly annoyed by music (‘[I have experienced] just a sort of irritable rage. Now I wonder what others feel and think I may be missing out on something.’), some music appraisal seemed to be shared with ‘normal’ listeners.

CLAIRE MCDONALD, LAUREN STEWART (2008). USES AND FUNCTIONS OF MUSIC IN CONGENITAL AMUSIA Music Perception, 25 (4), 345-355 DOI: 10.1525/MP.2008.25.4.345

Do you have amusia?

Some people doubt whether they have a sense for musical pitch? However being tone deaf is a relatively rare phenomenon that is studied by neuroscientists (who refer to it as amusia) because it might give us clues about the specificity of music. This week, in exchange for a short blog, a reference to an amusia test made available by the University of Montreal.

'Why do people sing so shamelessly out of tune?'

This week a national newspaper called me with this peculiar question. It reminded me immediately of a lecture that Isabelle Peretz (University of Montreal) gave this spring in the UK on amusia or tone deafness. In that she showed recent video material of a lab member who sang very much out of tune, but who was not aware of it. Surprising, because he has a degree in music education.

The reason I mention the example is that we often equal a talent for music to performance, such as being able to sing or play an instrument, and not so much to perception, for instance, being sensitive to subtle differences in pitch and timing when listening to music. When somebody sings out of tune, we might infer that he or she has no talent for music.

That is of course a misunderstanding. We can not simply judge someone’s musicality through the acrobatics of performance (Besides it needs years of training; see an earlier posting). More and more research is showing that mere exposure —not musical expertise as a result of formal training— has an influence on making sophisticated musical judgments.

With regard to performance, an intriguing study was done by Simone Dalla Bella and colleagues (just published in JASA). They asked occasional singers, recruited in a public park, to sing a well-known Quebecan birthday song. It was no surprise to find the professional musicians to reproduce the song much more precise than the ‘non-musicians’. However, when the ‘non-musicians’ were invited in the lab, and were asked to sing it again at a slightly slower pace, most sang it just as accurately as the professional singers. Another example that shows that musical skills are more common than we might think.

Dalla Bella, S., Giguère, J., & Peretz, I. (2007). Singing proficiency in the general population The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 121 (2) DOI: 10.1121/1.2427111