Acoustic analysis on vocal voice of Lee Nan-Young, a legendary singer of Korea

Abstract

Lee Nan-Young, a legendary female popular singer of Korea, made her debut in 1934 and enjoyed a tremendous popularity among Korean people in the 1930-40s. She was a special comfort to Korean people who were suffering from colonial exploitations by the Japanese government during that time. To celebrate her 100th birthday, we analyzed her vocal recordings in order to find its unique characteristics that set her apart. Findings can be summarized as follows: first, her voice has harmonics found around 4500 Hz and even higher, which is three times higher than average; second, she changes tones from 250 Hz to 1500 Hz (2.5 octaves), producing an attractive plaintive voice; third, she gives many short cut-offs in low tones but produces rich resonant voice in high tones, practicing a variety of singing methods; fourth, she has a command of producing all-frequency-ranged voice including low, middle, and high frequency and makes rich vibrations resulting in deep and touching voice; last, her voice naturally and smoothly links with a variety of musical instruments accompanying her songs. Based on these findings, we conclude that she deserves to be recognized as one of the best popular singers who have ever performed.