Drawing development of hearing and voice, recovery methods of hearing and intonation impairments Ioan Oarcea*

Transilvania University of Braúov, Faculty of Music, Eroilor Street, no. 29, Braúov, Romania Abstract The human voice
is the most complete, complex and expressive communication instrument of musical language. The artistic qualities
of the human voice can be affected by hearing and intonation dysfunctions that have a negative effect on musical
intelligibility and expressivity. Hearing and voice training is a component of the musical education, as the didactic
mission of music teachers does not only address gifted students, but all, to the extent of their ability for musical
communication. The methods used for correcting false singing pursue an improvement in sound production, in
perception and memory. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the
Scientific Committee of PSIWORLD2014. Keywords:art, communication dysfunctions, vocal recovery, education,
training 1. Introduction Correct musical intonation is conditioned by three determining factors: hearing (good
functioning of the nerve system), sound emission (intonation) and musical memory. The conclusions of this synopsis
are based on analysing the phenomenon and successfully experimenting vocal recovery methods within the
following types of groups where I worked as a music teacher: middle school pupils in the general culture education
system and middle and high school pupils in the vocational education system. The first ascertainment highlighted the
fact that all pupils who have had a practical musical experience in their family, church, school or various artistic
groups (choirs, vocal groups ...) manifest obvious musical skills, as parents, educators from pre-school education,
primary school teachers and music teachers play a decisive part in the activity * Corresponding author. Tel.: +040-
722-257 034; fax: +040-68-367 723. E-mail address:[email protected] © 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is
an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-
review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of PSIWORLD 2014. Ioan Oarcea / Procedia - Social and
Behavioral Sciences 187 ( 2015 ) 464 – 469 465 of rendering children more musical. By contrast, pupils who did not
benefit from musical education in their family, church or school became unformed, timid, and unable to use their
own voice (Oarcea, I., 2010). 2. Factors determining hearing, intonation and rhythm impairments A non-musical
individual, defined as tone deaf, is a person deprived of voice, deprived of the possibility to accurately sing a tune.
The wording is partly correct, because any individual who has intonation inflexions in the spoken voice towards high
or low has a voice, but due to physiological vocal impairments and due to the existing neurological and psychological
dysfunctions, the individual does not have the ability to complexly model and align the spoken towards the singing
voice. Awareness and understanding of the causes of physiological, neurological and psychological dysfunctions of
the child represent the starting point in the recovery from singing out of tune, which can be determined by
hereditary, medical or educational factors. From a medical point of view, we can encounter innate hereditary
anomalies, such as deformations of the larynx, mouth or throat, which affect the respiratory system and which can
be observed in the sound of the voice, whereas the neurological anomalies cause dysfunctions in the area of
perception and artistic expression, of the neuro-psychology of music. Out of tune singing at children can be caused
by dysfunctions of the intonation and hearing due to inhibition, cancellation or lateness of mental processes, which
affect the creativity of singing. It can be caused by psychological factors (shyness, fear, constraint) and temperament
structure (hyperactive or calm child, with intense speaking, or hypotonic with a dead voice, without timbre), which
can determine the lack of attention and focusing regarding the height of the sound, lack of motivation and interest
to sing, to make music. Accuracy of intonation, with implications on the health of the vocal chords, can be affected
by inadequate breathing and faulty impostation. As a biological process, breathing has beneficial effects on the blood
circulation and on the nervous system. In vocal singing, the musical sound is produced with the help of the air
column, and correct breathing offers the performer the possibility to support the music phrase (Lamboley, D., 2001).
By impostation we understand the position of the mouth during singing that is how the lips, teeth, palate, tongue
and larynx act together for the sound sonority to have expressiveness and homogeneity. There is a clear difference
between the mouth’s breathing and position in current speech and breathing and impostation during vocal singing
(Cegolea, G., 1995). Concerning the melodic flow, non-musical individuals – without a musical sense – lack the ability
to differentiate between the musical height; they are aware of the ascendant or descendant flow of sounds, but
imprecisely so; their ambitus is restricted and they have the tendency to sing in the same register as the spoken
voice. This dysfunction can be of temperamental nature, and passive children make the most mistakes in
differentiating height. The sense of rhythm is a movement factor. Singing with rhythm implies the flow of sound
pulsations in a measured sequence of impulses (Daniélou, A., 1978). The sounds are more easily imprinted in
memory if they have rhythm, because the sense of rhythm is tributary to physiological and dynamic laws, as well as
to those of tempo (of agogics). The lack of rhythmical synchronisation, unequalisation of durations as well as the
growth or acceleration of the tempo can have several causes: inaccurate knowledge of the part, incomplete
memorising of certain fragments, the dense structure of the rhythm and distances of the melodic line, the prosodic
structure of the text, a difficult melodic texture, extended dimension of the musical phrases, insufficient physical and
vocal preparation for singing, the acoustics of the hall, etc.The inability to sing accurately can be determined by the
lack of a proper environment and of a musical practice within the family, by an erroneous academic education, by an
improper education system, or by lack of teaching experience. From this point of view, one of the frequent errors of
the present musical education is to employ parts from the repertory of adults while working with children, with
insurmountable difficulties of melody and rhythm and with a theme which exceeds the understanding ability of their
age. Sometimes, exotic repertories are favoured, avoiding parts accessible to their age from the community cultural
heritage. The difficult, approximate intonation in an ambitus that is inaccessible for the age causes the deformation
of intonation with effects on audio acuity. The phenomenon is sometimes worsened by the non-musical vocal
pattern of the trainer. Noise constitutes the main disruptive factor of the auditory and vocal ability, alongside viral
infections, chemical pollution, and the humidity of the environment, continuous speaking or everyday stress. This is
the percentage graph of the factors that determined dysfunctions of hearing, intonation and rhythm in middle
school pupils from four middle schools in Braƕov and Săcele (11 – 14 years): genetic and congenital 466 Ioan Oarcea
/ Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 187 ( 2015 ) 464 – 469 anomalies (2 %), neurological and mental
anomalies (3 %), attention, concentration, memorising (8 %), voice mutation in boys (9 %), temperament
structure(10%), inhibition, timidity, fear (13 %), inefficient breathing (17 %), faulty impostation (21 %), lack of musical
education in the family 64 %; Fig. 1 In the same school groups it was noticed that pupils who activated in ensembles
and music bands within or outside the school (church, clubs...) had singing dexterities already formed (to a greater or
lesser extent), as well as the intonational and expressive operation ability with the musical language elements
specific of the approached repertory. Within vocational education, the most frequent cases of hearing and
intonation dysfunctions are caused by inhibition (3%), timidity (9%), temperament structure (7%), attention (4%) and
the voice mutation phenomenon in boys (5%). I encountered a particular situation amongst the pupils of the Popular
Art School, mostly teenagers, in the most sensitive manifestation period of their interest towards the concept of
personal and artistic beauty. The most frequent cases of musical dysfunctionality were manifest by the existence of a
vigorous, sometimes impressive vocal tonus, but without being able to integrate it to a tonal centre – the melodic
line was in a continuous modulation (Sachs, O., 2009). Another aspect is related to the singer’s sequential memory,
who, starting from a known musical theme, continues the melody in its succession with thematic motifs from other
works, also changing the tonal centres at the same time. Interesting to note was the fact that the approached
fragments were part of the performer’s memory stock, but without him being able to integrate them to the initial
melody type; it was all an enchainment of melodic motifs from different works, performed on the most bizarre tonal
centres. The most obvious examples is that of Tansanu Mirel. 3. Methods of recovery for singing out of tune The
singing / music teacher’s complex activity for recovering and improving intonation, hearing and rhythm dysfunctions
envisages both the approach of the most adequate singing techniques for each individual case, and particularly the
psychological side of an active communication between teacher and pupil. Training of the vocal-auditory abilities
implies giving up on a priori labelling of children that do not meet the expected requirements, as being tone deaf,
and considering this stage as a development stage. The labelling of pupils by the educational structures can have
strong social and psychological effect on the child, and neglecting or ignoring this factor can deprive the child from
his musical-cultural development, leaving him at the will of hazard or leaving him to assimilate harmful patterns. The
communicative atmosphere from the educational environment, based on truthfulness and mutual trust, eliminates
conflicts and counter-balances negative emotions, ensuring the inner equilibrium and self-restraint. A delicate smile
and a positive attitude are ways by which openness is created for personal and collective expression. The methods
used to correct out of tune singing pursue the improvement of sound production, of perception and memory
starting from the group approach to the individual approach. When selecting the practical exercises of recovery one
must take into account the fact that musical learning is achieved in an auditory, visual, kinaesthetic or mixed manner
(Daniélou, A., 1978). When correcting intonation errors, individual performance is to be preferred in 2% 3% 8% 9%
10% 13% 17% 21% 64% genetic and congenital anomalies neurological and mental anomalies attention,
concentration, memorising voice mutation in boys temperament structure inhibition, timidity, fear inefficient
breathing faulty impostation lack of musical education in the family Ioan Oarcea / Procedia - Social and Behavioral
Sciences 187 ( 2015 ) 464 – 469 467 younger children, as it ensures individual focusing which gives them the chance
to correct themselves, whereas collective interpretation is more efficient in the case of older children. A work
session may comprise, in its progressive succession, the following sequences in a temporal development that differs
from one individual to another, from one group to another and from one study level to another: x exercises for
physical training and breathing – for preparing the body and rendering it more flexible; x exercises for diction –
expressive recitation of texts from the pupils’ lectures or the songs studied; x exercises for vocal training – in a light
manner of sound emission through correct voice impostation. According to the group’s structure and the goals
pursued, the work techniques are different from those at the choir ensemble classes. The scholastic manner is
replaced with a ludic one, where the teacher chooses the type of exercises as to their technique and difficulty level,
adapting them to each individual or work group. Here are some approach and work techniques used, described in
detail: Sung speaking, which evidences the specific sound of the mother tongue, can represent the first stage of
musical education. It can be continued later, progressively, with musical examples from children’s folklore, with a
limited ambitus of intonation, with a simple but trained melody. At high school groups, rhythmic and melodic
fragments from the entertainment repertory (folk, light music and jazz) of well-known performers can be used. At
this time, the proposals can also come from the pupils. Staccato singing is one of the efficient methods in the case of
children with intonation difficulties, since it implies the training of the body and diaphragm, and by the approach
method, it provides the passage from sung speaking to singing per se. Interpretation of sounds with increased
difficulty is easier to achieve within rhythmical-melodic motives, rather than individually, as the musical texture –
that is, the intelligent manner of combining distances of various dimensions within rhythmical-melodic formulas –
represents an important factor in the accurate interpretation of intonation. Sometimes, difficult rhythmic and
melodic fragments are encountered even in the repertory proposed by the participants. Engaging the performers in
a form of sung dialogue offers surprising observations regarding the creative manner of structuring the configuration
of the melody, sometimes of great difficulty. The interpersonal musical dialogue implies a psychological involvement,
of attitude of the individual within the collective. As complementary methodology suggestions regarding the
development of auditory acuity, as well as the increase of the ability to emit and perceive sounds and melodies
within the vocal development, one can employ: body movements, use of rhythm instruments or use of hand signals,
drafts, diagrams and melody contours. For the development of musical sense, of sound emission and memory, the
child must be continuously subject to singing experiences as varied as possible: echo singing, onomatopoeia singing,
in staccato or legato, on mute sound – by causing the vibration of the facial resonators. Unfolding the activity’s
moments can be supported by rhythmic (bells, small drums, triangle, etc...) or rhythmic and melodic accompaniment
(piano, guitar,...). The rhythmic and melodic background of the accompaniment has a multiple role; to train, conduct
as well as correct, because while the work session moments are unfolding there is permanent, unconscious relating
of the participants to the model the accompaniment background proposes – leading to correct intonational and
rhythmic memorising of the models learned. At an advanced work stage, the accompaniment may even be
supported by the pupils – groupwise or individually. The progressive elimination or attenuation of the psychical
(inhibition, timidity, fear) or temperamental disturbing factors (hyperactivity, hypotonia or passivity) can be achieved
through breathing exercises for psychical detensioning and relaxation (Lamboley, D., 2001). Another method is the
individual’s active integration and objective valorisation within the group by involving him in cultural projects and
programmes where he can manifest his artistic and human potential. Improvisation may constitute another moment
of the workshop. The moment must be chosen carefully by the teacher, when he notices in the participants’ gestures
and experiences manifestations of personal creativity, when they externalise their feelings in an artistic manner –
musically, verbally or bodily. The individual, soloist evolution may constitute a peak moment of the activity, which
crowns an obvious progress. Very important in the working sessions is to obtain a state of inner
unleashing/relaxation; starting from this moment, the teacher can intervene, model and progressively correct the
intonation, rhythm and memory 468 Ioan Oarcea / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 187 ( 2015 ) 464 – 469
dysfunctions he has noticed, with intelligence and patience, to a smaller or greater extent. The entire arsenal of
methods and procedures used – physical training and breathing exercises, intonation exercises, vocalises, diction and
singing techniques, verbal language, the demonstrative vocal pattern – are conditioned by the empathic dialogue
between teacher and pupils. 4. Conclusion – result assessment, reward and appreciation The continuous assessment
of the activities of development and/or recovery of the musical voice and hearing is very important in order to
induce a feeling of trust and personal motivation of the pupils. Appreciation must be objective, expressed in a
positive, tonic form, in order to be efficient in correcting erroneous interpretations. If the pupils only encounter
failures in interpretation, then the musical examples selected and the exercises/studies performed were not
adequate. Each moment of the pupil’s or pupil group’s evolution must be completed through a corrective or
approving attitude related to the manner they reacted to the teacher’s guiding. In most educational processes for
remedying dysfunctions in hearing, intonation and rhythm, the periodic and final evaluation stressed that, as a
consequence of the activities undertaken, there is obvious progress in the pupil’s attitude and ability to operate with
musical language. Evolution and progress are individual traits; at some, they are obvious and are manifested
instantaneously, at others they are noticed later. The momentary reaction and impression are not defining, as they
can be superficial, mimetic. Compared to the indicators of the graph above, through a positive, open and active
attitude of the teacher, the pupils succeeded in improving their dysfunctions determined by inhibition, timidity, fear
and temperament structure. By activating the inner resources, the ability to memorise, attention and concentration
were improved, and by consciously applying singing techniques, the quality of breathing and impostation was
improved (Lamboley, D., 2001). The lack of musical educationin the family was also compensated by involving the
pupils in cultural activities of the school community. As for genetic, innate, neurological and mental anomalies, the
results were minimal, but they can be attenuated much more easily during teenage and maturity (Daniélou, A.,
1978). This is how the percentage graph of the progress noticed in remedying the dysfunctions of hearing, intonation
and rhythm looks like, a year later, determined by the following factors: compensating the lack of musical education
in the family (40 %), inhibition, timidity, fear, temperament structure (30 %), attention, concentration, memorising
(25 %), breathing and impostation (20 %), genetic, innate, neurological and mental anomalies (5 %). Fig. 2 A positive
attitude in the family and a communicative atmosphere in the educational environment are decisive in activating the
individual’s inner musical readiness and recovering from hearing and intonation dysfunctions. According to the
seriousness of genetic, medical or psychological affections, the recovery of dysfunctions may reach certain
operational performances, determined by the pupil’s emotional intelligence and particularly by the educator’s
mastery. Being aware of the complexity and diversity of the causes of the auditory dysfunctions and of the
techniques of educational training, we consider that it is necessary to add to the university curriculum of future
trainers, music teachers, of a discipline which should cover both objective ways, individual and collective, of
educating the hearing and voice, and the recovery of non-singing children. The ability to communicate through the
musical language brings a positive attitude, psychological comfort and a rich cultural horizon to the individual. 40%
30% 25% 20% 5% · compensating the lack of musical education in the family · inhibition, timidity, fear, temperament
structure · attention, concentration, memorising, · breathing and impostation · genetic, innate, neurological and
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