Effects of Focus of Attention on Tone Production in Trained Singers

Abstract

Motor performance in familiar tasks is often advantaged when performers focus on the effects of their movements rather than on the movements themselves. But, this phenomenon has yet to be studied systematically in the context of vocal production. I evaluated 20 trained singers’ vocal tone as they varied their focus of attention. Each participant performed a short vocalise, a phrase of “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and a prepared solo piece under six different conditions in which they focused attention on either keeping the vibrato steady, the position of their soft palate, directing their sound to points in the room at three different distances from the singer, or imagining “filling the room” with sound. Each session began with singers performing with no focus instructions, which served as a baseline for comparison. Expert listeners rated all performances on seven variables. Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) revealed significant effects for the evaluation variables of ring and overall tone quality in all singing tasks. Ratings were higher for ring and overall tone quality when the focus of attention moved farther from the singer.