[steven]

I think it should be noted that intonation varies depending on the region in Japan, but either way the intonation of words is pretty solid (as in extremely important for words and phrases to be understood). English is very much the same way though (with emphasis on stress as well as pitch).

Cranks, you make a good point. The tonal quality of the voice is a huge part of what we're talking about. The pitch definitely changes, but so does the quality of the voice.

People are often fooled by this phenomenon. There are many types of singing voices and colors that can be added. You might've heard the terms, head, mixed, falsetto, chest, etc - voice. That's what we're talking about. Listen to someone like Michael Jackson. It's without a doubt that he was able to hit really high notes, but even when he hit notes that were low he had a very feminine and light quality to his voice. This is because he doesn't usually use his chest voice. He's using a lot of his nasal cavity for resonance and mixing his head and falsetto voice (from what I can tell anyways). Now contrast that with someone like Michael McDonald. They have the same first name, but they have completely different singing voices. When Michael McDonald sings lead, he has a very dark quality to his voice, even when he hits the high notes. This makes his singing voice sound lower than it is. I'm sure the beard helps, too. At any rate, if you hear him sing background vocals on Steely Dan records or Donald Fagen solo works, you will notice that he sometimes doesn't always have that dark quality. Particularly if you listen to the song Peg by Steely Dan, you will hear Michael McDonald hitting notes that women would struggle with... and the quality of his voice is distinctly him, but not quite his usual dark tone. He would probably be like a Baritone based on his voice quality alone... since he hits those high notes he's probably more like a Baritenor or somet hyrbrid thing like that.

As a side note, I grew up basically tone deaf. I really started liking music, as in wanting to get involved in it, in my later days of high school... taking singing lessons during college was a revelation to my singing/pitch recognition as much as it was to my Japanese learning. For anyone trying to learn how to speak a second language or improve their speaking in their mother language, definitely consider joining a chorus or taking singing lessons.