Multimodal Aspects of Singing Development: Introduction to Part III

Singing researchers, educators, performers, and lay audiences alike tend to focus on the auditory and motor skills required for singing. In this context, motor refers to the actions of the musculature that are required to produce vocalizations that would be regarded as singing. There is an important neural substrate to these muscle movements involving sequencing of motor actions and specific codes to initiate the units of action. When other modalities are considered in popular discourse on singing, the treatment tends to be superficial. However, findings from research conducted over the last two decades suggest that the multimodal information that was once viewed as incidental might actually be quite important. In particular, the visual and somatosensory modalities are worthy of in-depth consideration. In the context of singing, visual refers to the head and facial movements that are visible while observing singing, while somatosensory refers to the perception of vibrotactile information on the skin or the body. There is a vast array of visual and somatosensory information that avails itself during perception of singing, especially in a live context. There is also an important role for somatosensory information during the production of singing. In summary, it seems that multimodal information can shape both the perception and production of singing. This chapter presents ethological and psychological perspectives on the role of multimodal information in singing and singing development before providing an overview of the chapters in Part III of the volume.