Glottal airflow voice source characteristics of 11-year-old singers

Abstract

The voice source of 18 girls and 10 boys from a music school was analyzed by inverse filtering the flow signal during sustained phonation of the vowel /a/ at three pitches (F0 between 220 and 330 Hz) using soft, mid, and loud voices. Subglottal pressure was measured as the oral pressure during the /p/ occlusion preceding the vowel. As compared to previous data on adult voices, the pressure values were high, and boys tended to use slightly higher pressures than girls. The influence of pitch and loudness variation was similar to that previously reported for adult voices. The ac flow amplitude was substantially smaller than previously reported for adults and was significantly higher in the boys than in the girls, while no significant sex differences were found for the children’s closed quotient and for the level difference between the two lowest spectrum partials. Contrary to findings for adults, the dc flow during the quasiclosed phase was greater in the boys. Overall, the present findings were similar to those previously reported for untrained children’s voices. Thus children’s voice source characteristics can be more conveniently derived from singer subjects with their greater skill in independent control of pitch and loudness.