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The Musicality of the Human Voice,  i ts Development, and  i ts Cognitive, Emotional and Psychophysiological Effects

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From the moment we wake up, to when we fall asleep, the world around us is like a sound garden, a combination of predictable and unpredictable stimuli that surround us. Some may capture our attention, while others may not. Some may trigger emotional, cognitive or psychophysiological responses.

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Nicholas J. Giordano,  Sr , author of ‘Physics of the Piano’, writes that the human ear is extremely sensitive and can detect pressure oscillations from a sound wave of less than one billionth of normal atmospheric pressure. In terms of force, he writes that the human ear is sensitive to  forces as  small  as one  nano  newton, which is about one billion times smaller than the weight of a baseball (Giordano, 2010).

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Fig 1 Graph displaying the range of human sound

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The other day, I saw an old lady helplessly trying to cross the road at a zebra crossing. As cars tend to drive closely in Indian traffic, many drove by without seeing her. Therefore I stopped my car,  giving her a chance to cross. However, in that moment, she didn ’ t notice that I had stopped for her, nor did I honk my horn to get her attention. After a moment or two, I drove off, and a line of cars followed behind me, making her task difficult once more.

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While this is a problem largely based on bad urban design and traffic regulations,  I found myself asking the question, “Why didn’t I wait a moment longer?”, especially since I  wasn ’ t in a hurry.  I then  realised , it was because I could anticipate the sound of honking from the cars around me, and just like I did not want to startle the old lady, I too did not want to be startled or agitated by the noise around me.  This is an example of how the experience of sound can influence one’s  behaviour  and actions without their knowledge.

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Giodarno   Sr  addresses certain areas of the perception of music and sound, that highlight the grey areas between science and perception.  The definitions of pitch, timbre and loudness he writes, do not specify how physical measurements can be used to determine these quantities. He does provide the argument that loudness is related to the amplitude of a sound wave, but that this knowledge does not help one compare the loudness of tones of different pitches  (Giordano, 2010).

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Pitch  –  Pitch is that attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which sounds may be ordered on a scale extending from low to high. Pitch depends  primarily on the frequency content of the sound stimulus,  but it also depends  on the sound pressure and the waveform of the stimulus. (ANSI 1994)

2. Loudness  –   The  attribute of a sound that determines the magnitude of the auditory sensation produced and that primarily depends on the amplitude of the sound wave  involved. (Merriam  –  Webster)

3. Timbre   –  The character or quality of a musical sound or voice as distinct from its pitch and intensity. (Oxford)

Below are some chosen definitions of the acoustical properties of sound, to help demonstrate Giordano’s  point -

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The following excerpt from Giodarno’s book, ‘Physics of the Piano’, asks an important question  –   ‘If we can’t give better definitions of such important quantities as pitch, timbre, and loudness, how can we hope to use these  quantities when discussing a musical  tone?’ (Giordano, 2010) He goes on to say, that these quantities are meaningful to a listener, and that it is the response of the auditory systems to different tones that brings these perceptions to their general consensus. This is important to note, as humans display the same qualities through their vocal output  –  pitch, volume and tone.

$200
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age
troid
I never said she stole my money.
said she stole my money.
I never said she stole my money,
I never said she stole my money.
I never said she stole
my money.
I never said she stole my money,
I never said she stole my money
I never said she stole my money?
time (s)
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Fig 2  : Human  Cortical Encoding of Produced Pitch in  dLMC  during a Word Emphasis Task

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In her book ‘The Human Voice’, the author Anne Karpf writes, that our opinions of other people’s voices are often  based on our own (Karpf, 2007). This reiterates the point made by Giordano, that the quality of sound is dependent on one’s perception.

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3 . Possible  Impacts of Sound on Mental, Emotional and Physical Well Being

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Richard   Brennan, in his book, the Alexander Technique Workbook, writes (Brennan, 2002:82)  -   The psycho-physical condition of the person afflicted with irritation and pressure is such that all his efforts in any direction will be more or less of a failure as compared with the efforts of those who are not so afflicted, and there is probably no stimulus from without which makes more irritability of the person concerned than failure (either comparative or complete) in accomplishment, nothing  which can have a worse effect upon our emotions, self-respect, happiness, or confidence  –  in fact, upon our temperament and character in general.

Fig 3  Adults unknowingly hold tensions in their body, even when apparently relaxing

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In other words, a person who is afflicted with pressure or irritation, including those caused by noise or sound, can also have a negative impact on their mental, physical and emotional welll being.  These sources of  sound can be  from objects, such as those from a ball bouncing,  an alarm clock, and so on, or from music, or even from the people around us.

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3. The Relationship between Music and Speech

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In 1995, psychologist Diana Deutsch  was looping phrases  of one of her recordings in order to detect glitches, and stumbled  on the discovery that her voice, when on loop, sounded like a melody. This discovery brought Diana to the realization that the perception of music and language may  not have been as separate as was previously thought to be (Deutsch, 2010).

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‘In  a 2007 study scientists monitored the brain waves of people who were listening to recordings of words  spoken  in Mandarin.  The study subjects, all English speakers, did not understand the meaning of what they heard. But the ones who had a music background showed a much stronger electrical response in a region called the auditory brain stem (left) than did those who had no musical training (right).  The work suggests that learning to sing or play an instrument can make people more attuned to the melody of speech .’ (Deutsch, 2010:41)

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Fig 4 Comparison of brain waves of musicians and non musicians when listening to recordings of Mandarin

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1. How does the human auditory system process sound, which can trigger cognitive, physiological, and emotional responses?

2. How can mindfulness techniques be developed to increase one’s self awareness of said responses, so as to react  in more positive ways, especially during cases of human interaction?

3. How can active listening skills be used to change negative vocal interactions into positive outcomes ?

5. What techniques can be developed to recover from negative impacts of unwanted sounds, noise, or human interaction?

4. Can more exposure to music improve  one’s communication skills? How does this differentiate between active participation and passive listening?

This  proposed research topic seeks  to answer the following questions  –

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References Brennan, R. (2002)  The Alexander Technique Workbook: Your Professional System for Health, Poise and Fitness , Vega Publishing, London Deutsch, D. (2010) ‘Speaking in Tones:  Music and language are partners in the brain. Our sense of song helps us learn to talk, read and even make  friends’,  Scientific American Mind , July/Aug, pp. 36-43  Giordano, N.J (2010)  Physics of the Piano,  Oxford University Press, Oxford.  Karpf , A. (2007)  The Human Voice :  The Story of a Remarkable Talent,  Bloomsbury Publishing  plc , London.   International  Commision  for Acoustics (2021)  Audible Frequencies.  International Year of Sound 2020. [Online] [Accessed on 14 th  August 2021]  https://sound2020.org/sound/audible/

PowerPoint Presentation

 References Brennan, R. (2002)  The Alexander Technique Workbook: Your Professional System for Health, Poise and Fitness , Vega Publishing, London Deutsch, D. (2010) ‘Speaking in Tones:  Music and language are partners in the brain. Our sense of song helps us learn to talk, read and even make  friends’,  Scientific American Mind , July/Aug, pp. 36-43  Giordano, N.J (2010)  Physics of the Piano,  Oxford University Press, Oxford.  Karpf , A. (2007)  The Human Voice :  The Story of a Remarkable Talent,  Bloomsbury Publishing  plc , London.   International  Commision  for Acoustics (2021)  Audible Frequencies.  International Year of Sound 2020. [Online] [Accessed on 14 th  August 2021]  https://sound2020.org/sound/audible/  

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