Saturday, October 3, 2009

Why we dont stutter while singing..??

I posted this question on ISAD online conference .There are many experts who will write an answer to your question and clear your doubts.

So here are some of the replies I got from the Experts :-

1)Charley Adams said :-

We have lots of ideas about why people who stutter can sing without stuttering.

First, think about speech rate; if you listen to words in a song carefully, you will realize that they are produced much more slowly than they would be produced in speech. We know that dramatically slowing down your speech rate is a powerful fluency-inducing condition, so this is a partial explanation.

Second,many people who stutter can read aloud with greater fluency than they can speak spontaneously; singing is much the same, as the words are chosen for you.

Third, music has a more regular rythym than speech, which also tends to enhance fluency.

Finally, and perhaps most compelling, is that speech and language are processed predominantly in the left hemisphere of the brain for most people, while music tends to be processed in the right hemisphere. So in an important sense, you are using a different part of your brain when you sing, vs. when you speak.

2)Greg Snyder said :-

Singing uses different neural circuitry, which (apparently) bypasses the stuttered neural fault.

3)Ed Feuer said :-

Singing as in singing songs is communication neutral. Add a message in real-world communication and you have what these days they call a game changer. Van Riper had people who stutter go out into stores, singing their questions such as: "Do you have bananas?" etc. Very quickly blocks began to appear. The old adverse signal-to-noise ratio kicks in.
— Ed Feuer, edfeuer@mts.net

4) Klaas Bakker said :-

Singing differs in many ways from natural speech, and so any physical difference of singing could be part of the explanation of why you don't stutter (as much). When someone sings, or speaks in a sing songy manner, you may bypass some of the brain centers you typically use for speaking (I don't think people sing from the right brain entirely though). When you sing, usually much of the expression is in how you produce the vowels of your speech (they have a certain pitch, intensity and duration, while their stress is related to a rhythimical pattern). All of this could explain why there is less stuttering. Finally, often singing involves speech already formulated by someone else, so it comes from memory. However, if you speak in a sing songy manner, like you described, obviously you are still in control of that. These would be some of my first thoughts looking for an explanation. But any explanation would still need more research to definitely tell.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi. I really like reading your blogs and very familier experiences you have mentioned.
On topic of singing i do remember my therapist teaching me on how to improve stammering while speaking. It did help me a lot. At that time when i was 4-5 year old, i lost my speech due to an accident. Those singing classes did help me a lot. I would say i recovered 80-90 % but certain part of stammering never went. I would say singing or speaking like somewhat singing defnitely helps a lot.
Thanks
Regards
Raman Singh

Anonymous said...

http://stutteringonlinetherapy.com/2012/01/why-don%E2%80%99t-people-stutter-when-they-sing/

Unknown said...

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