Flow Glottogram and Subglottal Pressure Relationship in Singers and Untrained Voices

Abstract

This article combines results from three earlier investigations of the glottal voice source during phonation at varying degrees of vocal loudness (1) in five classically trained baritone singers (Sundberg etal., 1999), (2) in 15 female and 14 male untrained voices (Sundberg etal., 2005), and (3) in voices rated as hyperfunctional by an expert panel (Millgård etal., 2015). Voice source data were obtained by inverse filtering. Associated subglottal pressures were estimated from oral pressure during the occlusion for the consonant /p/. Five flow glottogram parameters, (1) maximum flow declination rate (MFDR), (2) peak-to-peak pulse amplitude, (3) level difference between the first and the second harmonics of the voice source, (4) closed quotient, and (5) normalized amplitude quotient, were averaged across the singer subjects and related to associated MFDR values. Strong, quantitative relations, expressed as equations, are found between subglottal pressure and MFDR and between MFDR and each of the other flow glottogram parameters. The values for the untrained voices, as well as those for the voices rated as hyperfunctional, deviate systematically from the values derived from the equations.