Essay Musical Melody and Speech Intonation: Singing a Different Tune?

Abstract: Music and speech are often cited as characteristically hu-man forms of communication. Both share the features of hierarchical structure, complex sound systems, and sensorimotor sequencing de-mands, and both are used to convey and influence emotions, among oth-er functions [1]. Both music and speech also prominently use acous-tical frequency modulations, per-ceived as variations in pitch, as part of their communicative repertoire. Given these similarities, and the fact that pitch perception and produc-tion involve the same peripheral transduction system (cochlea) and the same production mechanism (vocal tract), it might be natural to assume that pitch processing in speech and music would also de-pend on the same underlying cogni-tive and neural mechanisms. In this essay we argue that the processing of pitch information differs signifi-cantly for speech and music; specif-ically, we suggest that there are two pitch-related processing systems, one for more coarse-grained, ap-proximate analysis and one for more fine-grained accurate representation, and that the latter is unique to music. More broadly, this dissocia-tion offers clues about the interface between sensory and motor systems, and highlights the idea that multiple processing streams are a ubiquitous feature of neuro-cognitive architec-tures. Whether you speak or sing, your vocal tract modulates the pitch of your voice. But to what extent do the mechanisms for producing and perceiving pitch in speech differ from those enlisted in musical contexts? Here we discuss the relevant evidence from psychology and neurosci-ence. We propose that although speaking and singing involve a substantial sharing of resources, musical pitch requires more accurate encoding and reproduction of pitch relationships than does speech