Interpretation of the acoustical analysis of the timbre of Chinese national singing: Female example.

Abstract

ABSTRACT - This study analyzed the female voice in Chinese National Singing from the perspective of music acoustics. By using music acoustic methodology, we collected, compared, and analyzed the sounds of female Chinese National Singing and bel canto. Comparison of the power spectrum and singer's formant led to conclusions respectively for the characteristics of power spectra of four kinds of voices with different timbre. Our experimental results show that the female voice of Chinese National Singing and bel canto share some characteristics of their formants in terms of peak heights, peak widths, and frequency domains. KEYWORDS - Chinese National Singing, timbre, singer's formant, music acoustics (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) Translated from the Chinese1 by Bing-Yi Pan From the perspective of musical acoustics, the human vocal organ can be considered as a music instrument, and it can be studied by using methods of music acoustics, because it contains the same acoustic components: vibrator, exciter, resonator, and controller, as do all other music instruments. We chose the female voice of Chinese National Singing as the target of this research. We analyzed and compared the power spectra and singer's formant of the female voice of four different styles of singing. TERMINOLOGY In order to avoid controversy, we will first define the key terminologies used in this article. They are: Chinese National Singing, timbre, and singer's formant. Chinese National Singing There are two definitions for Chinese National Singing, the general one and the specific one. The General Chinese National Singing includes traditional Chinese operas; Chinese story-telling music; folk music of all local operas developed by different nationalities across China; as well as the new singing styles created and developed under the New Music Movement, which is a professional singing method combining both the Western systematic training methods and Chinese traditional music styles. The Specific Chinese National Singing designates the singing styles developed by the New Music Movement during the twentieth century. By accepting elements from European singing, this singing style arose from the synthesis of the Chinese traditional singing and bel canto. In its even narrower sense, the Specific Chinese National Singing also refers to common singing methods being used for training of singing and professional music education in Chinese music colleges. Timbre The given definition for timbre in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 6th Edition, is: Timbre is a term that describes the tonal quality of a sound; a clarinet and an oboe sounding the same note are said to produce different timbres. It is usually reserved for descriptions of steady notes and therefore the physical quantity with which it is closely associated is the harmonic mixture, or the formant, or the spectrum. (Sadie, 1980, p. 823) Timbre perception by the human auditory system arises mainly via analyzing the harmonic distribution of the onset and the steady state of the tone. Differences of timbre mainly depend upon the number of harmonics and their relative intensities. The material and structure of a musical instrument as well as the manner of performing determine the distribution of harmonics. Even when playing the same instrument, artists can control the distribution of harmonics by using different registers or dynamics. For singers, when singing in different vocal register or dynamics, the oscillating mode of the vocal folds and the status of resonators will also be different. They are the elements that directly influence the distribution of harmonics. Both subjective and objective factors affect the sense of timbre. Subjective factors include contrasting elements, individual differences and national or cultural or traditional preferences. Objective factors include harmonic distribution of both the onset and steady state of the tone. …