A cost of musical training? Sensorimotor flexibility in musical sequence learning

Focus of attention in musical learning and music performance: a systematic review and discussion of focus instructions and outcome measures

The topic of attentional focus (focus of attention, FOA) in musical learning and performance has recently received increasing interest, as the growing number of empirical studies inspired by the established FOA paradigm in sports by Wulf and colleagues in 1998. The current systematical review aims at collecting, abstracting, and categorizing relevant data to show which kinds of FOA instructions were applied in experimental designs and what kinds of dependent variables were used to measure the effects of FOA instruction on musical performance. The three main inclusion criteria in the selection process were experimental design, detailed descriptions of FOA instructions, and outcome measures (OMs). A systematic search was conducted with a complex search term in four scientific databases in March 2023. For presenting and synthesizing results, we used data collection and an inductive-deductive data categorization. Fifteen studies with a total sample size of 401 participants were included out of 387 records initially identified. We collected 53 different FOA instruction citations from the 15 studies and classified them into 9 FOA subcategories, of which the most applied were bodily focus (21%), sound focus (15%), and visual focus (14%). Selected studies used 63 OMs that were abstracted to 10 different OM categories with expert ratings (27%) and acoustical analysis (22%) as the most applied dependent variables. Data categorization and abstraction of additional study information show multiple combinations of FOA instructions, OMs, participants' instruments and expertise, and musical tasks. Finally, studies show no consistent results of superiority of either external or internal or otherwise different FOA considering positive effects on musical performance. Limitations of the review lie in the small study sample, possible criticism of applied eligibility criteria, and subjectivity of data categorization. We propose a research agenda with a more exploratory approach that comprehensively and qualitatively examines the dimensions of musical goals to create a database that could provide a foundation for developing a music-specific FOA model.

The Key to Singing Off-Key: The Trained Singer and Pitch Perception Distortion

OBJECTIVES

Pitch perception distortion (PPD) is a novel term describing a phenomenon in which an amplified, accompanied singer's perception of their sung pitch relative to band or accompaniment becomes ambiguous, leading to one of two conditions: a) the singer believes they are out of tune with the accompaniment, but are in tune as perceived by a listener, or b) the singer believes they are in tune with the accompaniment, but are not. This pilot study aims to investigate the existence and incidence of PPD among amplified, accompanied performers and identify associated variables.

DESIGN/METHODS

115 singers were recruited to participate in an online survey, which collected information on musical training, performance environment, and PPD experience.

RESULTS

Reported PPD incidence was 68%, with 92% of respondents indicating that PPD occurred rarely. The factors reported as most associated with PPD experiences included loud stage volume, poor song familiarity, singing outside one's habitual pitch range, and singing loudly. Contrary to previous studies and our hypotheses, no association was found between modality of auditory feedback (e.g., in-ears versus floor monitors) and incidence of PPD. Additionally, higher levels of training were found to be associated with higher incidence of PPD.

CONCLUSIONS

The reported incidence supports that PPD exists beyond chance and anecdotal experience. In light of the highly trained sample, the data suggest that pitch accuracy in accompanied, amplified performance may be more associated with aural environment-specifically loud stage volume-and a highly trained singer's tuning strategy in response to that environment rather than a singer's mastery of vocal intonation skills in isolation. Loud stage volume was implicated as a primary factor associated with PPD, which may be related to the stapedius reflex. Future investigations will target attempted elicitation of PPD in trained singers after establishing baseline auditory reflex thresholds and objective measurements of intonation accuracy.

The Generation of Piano Music Using Deep Learning Aided by Robotic Technology

In order to improve the accuracy and precision of music generation assisted by robotics, this study analyzes the application of deep learning in piano music generation. Firstly, based on the basic concepts of robotics and deep learning, the advantages of long short-term memory (LSTM) networks are introduced and applied to the piano music generation. Meanwhile, based on LSTM, dropout coefficients are used for optimization. Secondly, various parameters of the algorithm are determined, including the effects of the number of iterations and neurons in the hidden layer on the effect of piano music generation. Finally, the generated music sequence spectrograms are analyzed to illustrate the accuracy and rationality of the algorithm. The spectrograms are compared with the music sequence spectrograms generated by the traditional restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM) music generation algorithm. The results show that (1) when the dropout coefficient value is 0.7, the function converges faster, and the experimental results are better; (2) when the number of iterations is 6000, the error between the generated music sequence and the original music is the smallest; (3) the number of hidden layers of the network is set to 4. When the number of neurons in each hidden layer is set to 1024, the training result of the network is optimal; (4) compared with the traditional RBM piano music generation algorithm, the LSTM-based algorithm and the sampling frequency distribution tend to be consistent with the original sample. The results show that the network has good performance in music generation and can provide a certain reference for automatic music generation.

Generalization of novel sensorimotor associations among pianists and non-pianists: more evidence that musical training effects are constrained

In the process of acquiring musical skills, such as playing the piano, we develop sensorimotor associations between motor movements and perception of pitch. Previous research suggests that these acquired associations are relatively inflexible and show limited generalizability to performance under novel conditions. The current study investigated whether piano training constrains the ability to generalize learning based on an unfamiliar (inverted) pitch mapping, using a transfer-of-training paradigm (Palmer and Meyer in Psychol Sci 11:63-68, 2000). Pianists and non-pianists learned a training melody by ear with normal (higher pitches to the right) or inverted (higher pitches to the left) pitch mapping. After training, participants completed a generalization test in which they listened to and then immediately reproduced four types of melodies that varied in their similarity to the melody used during training and were based on the same, a similar, an inverted, or a different pitch pattern. The feedback mapping during the generalization test matched training. Overall, pianists produced fewer errors and required fewer training trials than non-pianists. However, benefits of training were absent for pianists who trained with inverted feedback when they attempted to reproduce a melody with a different structure than the melody used for training. This suggests that piano experience may constrain one's ability to generalize learning that is based on novel sensorimotor associations.