Activity Type Title

Chapter 1. Chapter

Article

From the Pages of Scientific American

Physically Out of Tune

From the pages of Scientific American. Physically Out of Tune. Poor muscle control, not aural perception, underlies most cases of bad singing. A cringe-worthy chorus of “Happy Birthday” is usually all it takes to earn the label of “tone-deaf.” Yet fewer than 1 percent of the population is truly amusical, that is, lacking the ability to distinguish different pitches. Many more of us simply can’t carry a tune. A study published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General reinforces scientists’ growing belief that the culprit is not the ear but the throat. In a series of pitch-matching experiments, nonmusicians were pretty good at adjusting an instrument to match a specific note, suggesting that they could hear it just fine. They had much more trouble, however, imitating the same note with their own voice. The authors suspect that poor motor control of vocal muscles is partly to blame—findings that reinforce the idea that almost anyone can learn to sing. The author is Lena Groeger. Reproduced with permission. Copyright 2012 Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.

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1.1 Quiz

1. Roughly, what percentage of the population can truly be said to not be able to distinguish different pitches?

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2. The study discussed in the Scientific American excerpt Physically Out of Tune suggests that people’s problems with carrying a tune come from the:

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3. In the study from the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General that was described, what was the result of the non-musician participants’ attempts to adjust an instrument to match a specific note?

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4. Pitch is equivalent to what property of sound?

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5. If Jackie said that she could never learn to sing because she “doesn’t have an ear for music,” what might the research that was presented say is an appropriate response?

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