Emergence of collective intonation in the musical performance of crowds

TL;DR

This paper explains how crowds singing together can produce a perfectly tuned melody despite individual singers being out of tune, demonstrating a collective wisdom effect in musical performance.

Contribution

It introduces a psychoacoustic-based mechanistic explanation for the emergence of collective intonation in crowds singing.

Findings

Crowd singing appears perfectly tuned to external listeners.

Emergent collective intonation arises despite individual inaccuracy.

A simple psychoacoustic model explains this phenomenon.

Abstract

The average individual is typically a mediocre singer, with a rather restricted capacity to sing a melody in tune. Yet when many singers are assembled to perform collectively, the resulting melody of the crowd is suddenly perceived by an external listener as perfectly tuned -as if it was actually a choral performance- even if each individual singer is out of tune. This collective phenomenon is an example of a wisdom of crowds effect that can be routinely observed in music concerts or other social events, when a group of people spontaneously sings at unison. In this paper we rely on the psychoacoustic properties of pitch and provide a simple mechanistic explanation for the onset of this emergent behavior.