Mostly, they depict a man who stutters out of nervousness around a woman he wants to ask on a date. But most of the songs cited are older, some going back to the 1800s. The Stuttering Homepage has a list of songs that feature stuttering, some of which are relatively recent, like the awful Stutter Rap, made popular in Britain in the 1980s and Bob Dylan's The Ugliest Girl in the World. The song is quite popular, and they even performed it during half-time at the Grey Cup last November. The video is bizarre, set in what looks like a 1940s dance hall. His stuttering surprises him, as he asks " D-D-D-D-did I stutter?" in the chorus. The Canadian band Marianas Trench's song, Stutter, seems to be about a man who stutters out of nervousness when he tries to ask a girl to dance. Does she know kids who stutter are being teased with the lyrics to her song? This involved many artists who participated in the charity cover of Cyndi Lauper's tune "True Colors", and has spoken out against bullying in interviews. Fefe Dobson herself has been involved in an anti-bullying campaign, "ArtistAgainst". For kids who stutter, a popular song mimicking stuttering can be agonizing, as it is repeated by schoolmates to torment them. It is bothersome that stuttering is once again being used to indicate dishonesty. You sound guilty, 'cause you’re stutterin’ Fefe's song, Stuttering, is about a girl trying to get the truth out of her boyfriend who is lying to her. Two examples from the past three years are Canadian recording artists Fefe Dobson and the band Marianas Trench.
Sometimes musicians use it as a musical device –– the repetition of sounds in a song for effect –– and sometimes to communicate nervousness or dishonesty. Many stutterers can sing fluently, and would not sound that way. But songs that incorporate stuttering in the lyrics can often be annoying. During Dynamic Stuttering Therapy, clients begin to understand this difference between these 2 ways of speaking and they report a big difference in the ease of speaking when they do it in the way that it is don by normally fluent speakers.One must admit that You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet is a great song. For people who speak fluently, they are almost identical. For people who stutter the processes of speaking and singing are done very differently. Instead of the mouth automatically shaping the voice (intonation) into speech sounds, the voice becomes a vehicle for pushing out already formed speech sounds and words. Subconsciously, the brain is busy sending signals to lips, tongue, jaw, etc. Intonation takes a backseat as the brain tries to control word formation. In one way or another, they are concerned with saying words and “getting them out”. When speaking, the focus of attention for people who stutter is the words. For people who stutter speaking and singing are done differently. This can happen because fluent speakers are not aware of the words they are saying. Intonation becomes speech sounds as the mouth moves automatically. This creates intonation, the speech equivalent to melody. The same signals to vibrate the same vocal folds are subconsciously sent from the brain. Singing works this way for almost all people.įor the fluent speaker, speaking and singing are created in a similar way from the same exact anatomical structures. The speech sounds are formed automatically without any thought or effort. When the song contains lyrics, nothing changes. The brain sends these signals automatically whether you are singing silently or aloud. If you become aware of what happens in your throat, you will sense that your vocal folds are prepared to vibrate, even though you want to remain silent. If you want to see this for yourself, sing a song silently. As this is done, the motor area of the brain sends signals to the muscles of the larynx so that they will vibrate with the right pitch and rhythm. The melody of a song is developed in the brain. This sequence makes up the melody of the song. When singing, the subconscious intent is to produce a voice that contains a sequence of varied vocal tones.
Therefore, I am going to explain from the perspective of my theory why people who stutter don’t stutter when they sing and what the difference is between speaking and singing. Nonetheless, stuttering is very rare when singing.Īn acceptable theory of stuttering has to account for this phenomenon. Of the thousands of people who I have either evaluated or treated, a handful have stuttered occasionally when singing, particularly when starting to sing. Actually, it is often thought that no one stutters when they sing, but I have observed a few exceptions. One of the enigmas about stuttering is that most people who stutter when talking don’t stutter when singing.