Neuroscientists from McGill University created over 100 samples of a capella tunes with varying degrees of intelligibility of melody and text. Using an fMRI machine, they tested forty-nine participants to distinguish words and melody. The results showed that understanding either stimulus depended significantly on the neural activity patterns in the brain. Speech content was found to occur in the left side of the brain and melodic content in the right side.

“Humans have developed two means of auditory communication: speech and music.” This study indicates that by processing speech and music separately, our brains more efficiently encode the acoustical features of each.

Vocal music includes both verbal and musical languages. As such, many voice teachers (including myself) encourage singers to learn the text of a song separate from the melody. Understanding that the brain processes these stimuli separately but in parallel encourages this type of learning. So speak the text out loud and learn the precision of the musical notation. Then, like Humpty Dumpty, put it all back together.