Pitch performance in singing without auditory feedback
W. Dixon Ward, Edward McN. Burns · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1975
Subjects, both trained and amateur musicians, were asked to sing an ascending diatonic scale (from “do” to “do” upwards) and then a descending one, in the presence of various levels of noise fed to both ears via earphones. Vocal output was recorded and later analyzed. The condition of greatest interest was when the sidetone was completely masked; in this case, of course, errors increased. Departures of vocal fundamental frequencies from the target tone (assuming equal temperament based on the frequency of the first “do”) were studied in order to determine to what extent a given individual was using absolute versus relative kinesthetic feedback in the absence of auditory cues.