Examining 'good singing' in the age of The Voice

Examining 'good singing' in the age of The Voice

What constitutes 'good singing' can be hotly contested amongst voice pedagogues. The literature on singing evaluation tends to focus on quantitatively measuring the acoustic properties of the voice or qualitative evaluations by expert listeners, who assess the singer’s vocal technique relative to the performed genre. However, little is known about what the general public considers to be 'good singing'. Within a larger program of research on musical identity and singing self-concept, this small-scale, mixed-methods survey considered how people (N = 52) described and evaluated three stylistically different versions of a melody as sung by amateurs and professional vocalists to test a hypothesis that reality TV singing may be deemed as 'good singing' by the public. Specifically, participants were exposed to three versions of 'Happy Birthday': 1) amateurs singing 'as they would normally sing'; 2) professionals performing a 'plain' version; 3) the same professionals singing a version in the style of The Voice reality TV show. Quantitative and qualitative results indicate that both professional versions were considered 'better singing' than the amateur singing. While respondents focused on the technical deficiencies for amateurs, descriptions of the professionals concerned style. For the professional singers, it seems that technical considerations such as singing in tune were not remarked on because they were able to sing with pitch accuracy. Contrary to our hypothesis that the popularity of reality TV singing shows would influence public perceptions of good singing, people’s preferences for 'good singing' were split between the two professional versions, with people focused on sophistication and creativity (the 'professional voice' version) or vocal quality (the 'professional plain' version). While respondents’ preferred version largely matched their chosen exemplar of 'good singing', participants were more likely to sing along with the “amateur” version. Implications for vocal pedagogy and engagement in singing activities for wellbeing will be considered.

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