
The Happy Birthday Club
As a professor, choir director and researcher at Penn State University, I’m trying to answer this question with my colleagues, in what we affectionately named the “Happy Birthday Club,” by investigating the conditions that elicit the best singing from individuals. So far it seems that any emphasis on singing perfectly in tune can be detrimental to the idea that everyone can sing because it suggests that people should sing only if they sing exceptionally well. This is problematic for several reasons, but especially because self-concept – or one’s beliefs about oneself – turns out to be really important for participation in the arts. Our preliminary findings also tell us that we shouldn’t make judgments about singing based on familiar tunes that happen to be really hard.Ciara Newman, a Penn State music student, sings ‘Happy Birthday.’
Penn State University928 KB (download)
As part of our work, our colleague Peter Pfordresher, of the University at Buffalo, shared some data with us on college students singing “Happy Birthday.” Some of the students started the song high in their vocal range, more started lower in their vocal range, but many of them failed when it came to the big ascending leap: the third “happy birthday.”
This is what makes this universal song so difficult for people around the world to sing. The third “happy birthday” has an octave leap, meaning a seven-note jump in the musical scale. It can be hard for people to manage, especially if you started too high in the beginning and have already topped out your range. Fun fact: “Happy Birthday” happens to have originated in Kentucky in the 1890s as a simpler song called “Good Morning to All.”


The social influence of singing
In a recent lab meeting, one research assistant asked, “What if the reason we sing ‘Happy Birthday’ wrong is because we hear it sung poorly so often?” We don’t yet know the answer to whether people learn songs incorrectly to begin with and if that’s part of what makes the songs so hard. Add to this that the research says some children seem to sing better alone while others seem to sing better with other voices. This means that singing a more difficult song like “Happy Birthday” is actually a complex task with multiple variables, including what part of the range you try to sing it in and whether you or someone else has chosen the starting note for you. Interestingly, people don’t think they sing as well as they actually do. Children in one study who formed a “poor singer” experimental group were actually determined to be quite accurate pitch-wise once the researcher identified a good range for their singing voice and heard them sing alone. For adults who aren’t sure about their own singing ability, chances are you’re quite normal. Very few people have amusia, which means they can’t hear changes in pitches and can’t know if they’re singing the right note or not. Likely, you’re not one of them.So what should we sing?
Thinking back to the karaoke room, I chose that duet because I was confident Bradley Cooper’s part fit my range. (I even tried it at home first.) So here is some advice from the researchers of the Happy Birthday Club: Don’t judge your singing skills on familiar cultural songs; they’re just not good measures of our singing abilities. Instead, target the songs and the artists that you like, and then try to identify the music that fits your range the best. If the range is good for you, you’re much more likely to enjoy and find ease in singing it. Nearly all pop songs have a very small range, so that may be a good place to start. Find the notes that fit you best, and give them a try at home or the next time you find yourself on a karaoke stage. [You’re too busy to read everything. We get it. That’s why we’ve got a weekly newsletter. Sign up for good Sunday reading. ]