Vocal Timbre Research Articles

The angel enigma: experienced boy singers' perceptual judgements of changing voices

Between the approximate ages of 10 and 15, boys undergo a protracted phase of staged voice change that coincides with other changes in secondary sexual characteristics associated with puberty. A number of researchers, particularly John Cooksey in the United States, have described this. Tensions, however, remain between the theoretical model described in the research and the singing practices boys encounter through choral work in the UK. The age of 13 seems pivotal with regard to the singing range for boys. Cultural and social factors influence this and it is suggested that staged developmental models such as Cooksey's pay inadequate attention to these. This paper reports on the ability of young adolescent boys with good experience of singing to discern differences in vocal timbre and technique in age peers through perceptual tests. It concludes that such boys have surprisingly good discriminatory powers and that more attention should be paid to develop the listening skills of other boys as part of a programme to encourage better understanding of the young male voice.

Marian Anderson and “Sonic Blackness” in American Opera

Marian Anderson’s 1955 Metropolitan Opera debut promised to be a pivotal moment that would create a level playing field for African American singers in U.S. opera. But an examination of Anderson’s career, as well as those of later African American opera stars, reveals that their operatic engagements were often limited to marginalized characters. In attempt to understand this situation, this essay looks to the history of African Americans singing classical music from the mid-nineteenth through early twentieth centuries. Early classical singers’ careers and reception, even certain operatic repertoire, suggest that African American classical voices are heard through a complex filter constituted by perceptions of slaves’ voices, burlesque opera and minstrel shows, resulting in claims that blackness produces peculiar vocal timbres. This article, a case study of listening as a cultural-historical process, posits that perceptual sediments deposited during the abolitionist era continued to shape reception of African American operatic voices throughout later centuries.

Membranous and cartilaginous vocal fold adduction in singing

While vocal fold adduction is an important parameter in speech, relatively little has been known on the adjustment of the vocal fold adduction in singing. This study investigates the possibility of separate adjustments of cartilaginous and membranous vocal fold adduction in singing. Six female and seven male subjects, singers and non-singers, were asked to imitate an instructor in producing four phonation types: "aBducted falsetto" (FaB), "aDducted falsetto" (FaD), "aBducted Chest" (CaB), and "aDducted Chest" (CaD). The phonations were evaluated using videostroboscopy, videokymography (VKG), electroglottography (EGG), and audio recordings. All the subjects showed less posterior (cartilaginous) vocal fold adduction in phonation types FaB and CaB than in FaD and CaD, and less membranous vocal fold adduction (smaller closed quotient) in FaB and FaD than in CaB and CaD. The findings indicate that the exercises enabled the singers to separately manipulate (a) cartilaginous adduction and (b) membranous medialization of the glottis though vocal fold bulging. Membranous adduction (monitored via videokymographic closed quotient) was influenced by both membranous medialization and cartilaginous adduction. Individual control over these types of vocal fold adjustments allows singers to create different vocal timbres.

Using Audacity and One Classroom Computer to Experiment With Timbre

One computer, one class, and one educator can be an effective combination to engage students as a group in music composition, performance, and analysis. Having one desktop computer and a television monitor in the music classroom is not an uncommon or new scenario, especially in a time when many school budgets are being cut. This article investigates the creative applications of inexpensive software, such as Audacity, that students can use to analyze and create music individually or as a group. Audacity provides many tools to manipulate the musical elements of pitch, tempo, dynamics, and timbre. Analysis tools allow students to visualize sound waves and to experiment with the relationship of overtones to the sound of unique instrumental and vocal timbres. The manipulation of timbres provides one example of using a simple audio editing computer application to engage students in group instruction and experimentation. Several other strategies for using Audacity with students are included in a table. Teachers are encouraged to think of creative ways to use computer software beyond its primary function.

Queer Listening to Queer Vocal Timbres

What might it mean to have or to hear a queer vocal timbre? Can such a concept be of any real use to us? I attempt here to trace some steps toward exploring the exchange of queer sensations via tim...

Enhanced pure-tone pitch discrimination among persons with autism but not Asperger syndrome

Persons with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) display atypical perceptual processing in visual and auditory tasks. In vision, Bertone, Mottron, Jelenic, and Faubert (2005) found that enhanced and diminished visual processing is linked to the level of neural complexity required to process stimuli, as proposed in the neural complexity hypothesis. Based on these findings, Samson, Mottron, Jemel, Belin, and Ciocca (2006) proposed to extend the neural complexity hypothesis to the auditory modality. They hypothesized that persons with ASD should display enhanced performance for simple tones that are processed in primary auditory cortical regions, but diminished performance for complex tones that require additional processing in associative auditory regions, in comparison to typically developing individuals. To assess this hypothesis, we designed four auditory discrimination experiments targeting pitch, non-vocal and vocal timbre, and loudness. Stimuli consisted of spectro-temporally simple and complex tones. The participants were adolescents and young adults with autism, Asperger syndrome, and typical developmental histories, all with IQs in the normal range. Consistent with the neural complexity hypothesis and enhanced perceptual functioning model of ASD ( Mottron, Dawson, Soulières, Hubert, & Burack, 2006), the participants with autism, but not with Asperger syndrome, displayed enhanced pitch discrimination for simple tones. However, no discrimination-thresholds differences were found between the participants with ASD and the typically developing persons across spectrally and temporally complex conditions. These findings indicate that enhanced pure-tone pitch discrimination may be a cognitive correlate of speech-delay among persons with ASD. However, auditory discrimination among this group does not appear to be directly contingent on the spectro-temporal complexity of the stimuli.

A Modeling of Singing Voice Robust to Accompaniment Sounds and Its Application to Singer Identification and Vocal-Timbre-Similarity-Based Music Information Retrieval

This paper describes a method of modeling the characteristics of a singing voice from polyphonic musical audio signals including sounds of various musical instruments. Because singing voices play an important role in musical pieces with vocals, such representation is useful for music information retrieval systems. The main problem in modeling the characteristics of a singing voice is the negative influences caused by accompaniment sounds. To solve this problem, we developed two methods, accompaniment sound reduction and reliable frame selection . The former makes it possible to calculate feature vectors that represent a spectral envelope of a singing voice after reducing accompaniment sounds. It first extracts the harmonic components of the predominant melody from sound mixtures and then resynthesizes the melody by using a sinusoidal model driven by these components. The latter method then estimates the reliability of frame of the obtained melody (i.e., the influence of accompaniment sound) by using two Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) for vocal and nonvocal frames to select the reliable vocal portions of musical pieces. Finally, each song is represented by its GMM consisting of the reliable frames. This new representation of the singing voice is demonstrated to improve the performance of an automatic singer identification system and to achieve an MIR system based on vocal timbre similarity.

Lysioidia: Transgendered Actresses/Actors in Hellenistic Theater

Late in Athenaeus’ encyclopedic symposium, discussion turns to dinner entertainment, especially several obscure, defunct song genres whose distinctive features are shared around the table (14.620-621). While hilaroidia, serious paratragedy, and magoidia, suggestive, emasculated paracomedy, are directly contrasted with regards to costuming, accompaniment, and actor characterization, lysioidia is left in limbo here, either identical to magoidia (Aristocles) or identical in musical repertoire and everything else except, the lysiode performs gunaikeia prosopa andreiois, “female characters as males,” or “in male attire (Aristoxenus; Eust. Od. 23.134).” The dramatic effect even required a specialized woodwind instrument and musician (Ath. 5.182c; 6.252e). Three performers of lysioidia are identified in extant texts: Metrobios, a lover and “principal advisor” of Sulla (Plu. Sul. 36); Antiodemis, a “lovely chick,” “halcyon of Lysis-song,” and “plaything of drunken abandon,” admired by Antipater of Sidon (AP 9.567); and another female lysiode loved by Diogenes of Babylon (Ath. 5.211c-d Olson). So, women or men could sing these songs that deliberately blurred gender boundaries, certainly in costuming, and likely in lyrics and vocal register. Performers were to be young and alluring (Metrobios was past his prime), presumably type cast for gender ambiguity. The vocal timbre was countertenor/contralto, producing a sound and effect much like Julie Andrews’ androgyny in Victor/Victoria (1995) or Marlene Dietrich’s tuxedo-clad, bisexually charged love song as a cabaret performer in Morocco (1930; Naremore 1988, Loyo 1996), performances which I will examine with video here, along with the operatic ‘trouser’ role (Andre 2006) and the work of Elizabethan/Restoration female-role specialist, Edward Kynaston, portrayed in Stage Beauty (2004). Lysiode roles and plots sometimes centered on comic adulteresses, pimps, and drunks, though not necessarily in slapstick fashion. Illusion and delusion were key, and ribaldry might be expected. Antiodemis, object of the male gaze (cf. McClure 2003), offers a mesmerizing gaze of her own, erotic tones with fluid, sensuous movement, and gentle charm that Antipater recommends to pacify belligerent Romans. In a lampooning by the Seleucid Alexander Balas, Diogenes’ lover appears before the unsuspecting philosopher wearing a costume intended for him; the performance subtext suggests that Diogenes was admiring ‘himself’ onstage played by his male-impersonator girlfriend (Braund 2000). Many theater historians (following Reich 1903) have lumped lysiodes and similar singers under a generic heading of mime. While their actions and some roles are mimetic, the distinctive costuming and performance conceit do not reflect the well-represented genre of mime (Leppin 1992). The attested lysiodes are dated 150-80 BCE when Romans were rapidly adopting and adapting Hellenistic entertainments; thus, the heyday of lysioidia and its disappearance coincide chronologically and programmatically with early pantomime, the most popular theatrical genre in imperial Rome - a popularity partially founded on a performer’s ability to transgender believably (cf. Drechsler 2006). Selected Bibliography: Andre, N. 2006. Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti and the Second Woman in Early-Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera. Bloomington IN. Braund, D. 2000 “Athenaeus on The Kings of Syria,” in D. Braund/J. Wilkins. Athenaeus and His World, 514-22. Exeter. Drechsler, C. 2006. “‘Transgendered’ Perspectives as a Challenge to Sex, Gender, and Sexuality,” in W.Schissel. Home/Bodies: Geographies of Self, Place and Space, 47-66. Calgary. Fujita, M. & M. Shapiro. 2006. Transvestism and the Onnagata Traditions in Shakespeare and Kabuki. Folkestone UK. Leppin, H. 1992. Histrionen: Untersuchungen zur sozialen Stellung von Buhnenkunstlern im Westen des romischen Reiches zur Zeit der Republik und des Principats. Bonn. Loyo, H. 1996. “Dietrich’s Androgyny and Gendered Spectatorship,” in C. Cornut-Gentille d’Arcy/J.A. Garcia Landa. Gender, I-deology: Essays on Theory, Fiction and Film, 317-32. Atlanta. McClure, L. 2003. Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus. New York. Naremore, J. 1988. Acting in the Cinema. Berkeley. Olson, S.D, tr., comm. 2006-. Athenaeus. The Learned Banqueters (Loeb). Cambridge MA. Phillips, J. 2006. Transgender on Screen. New York. Reich, H. 1903. Der Mimus: Ein litterar-entwickelungsgeschichtlicher Versuch. Berlin Rowe, D. 1995. “Desiring Berlin: Gender and Modernity in Weimar Germany,” in M. Meskimmon/S. West. Visions of the ‘Neue Frau’: Women and the Visual Arts in Weimar Germany, 143-64. Brookfield VT.

Team Management of Voice Disorders in Singers

Team Management of Voice Disorders in Singers

Evaluation of the Progress of Therapy in Patients with Cleft Lip, Jaw and Palate, Using Voice Analysis – a Pilot Study

The defective morphology of the hard and soft palate in patients with cleft lip, jaw and/or palate in conjunction with speech, voice and hearing disorders can considerably restrict the ability to communicate. Changes in vocal timbre and the centripetal displacement of articulation are characteristic of cleft palate speech. There has not been a uniform diagnostic method in cleft centers to date which makes possible the analysis, documentation and comparison of changes in timbre. In this study we assessed a computer-aided evaluation process to determine objective vocal timbre parameters while treating children with cleft lip, jaw and palate who had undergone surgery according to the principle of delayed palate repair. The data and findings of 24 patients with various cleft forms were evaluated. The group we investigated consisted of seven patients with bilateral clefts, fourteen with unilateral cleft, and three with isolated cleft palate. Our subject cohort was limited to those born between 1985 and 1986. At the baseline investigation the children were aged 3 to 4 years, at the second investigation 4 to 5 years, and at the third investigation 5 to 7 years. These children underwent palate repair together with velopharyngoplasty between their fourth and fifth years. Our data were based on the tape recordings taken at these three investigation time points (before velopharyngoplasty, after velopharyngoplasty, and in the year they started school). The German words "Ball", "Kaffeekanne", "Schuhe" and "Schokoladenpudding" and the sentence "Meine Puppe heisst Sabine." were analyzed using "Multi Speech" software. The individual vowels were manually extracted from these recordings and the fundamental frequency (F0) and frequency of the first formant (F1) determined We were able to evaluate the spectra of the vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ of 24 children in all. There were statistically-significant differences in fundamental frequency when considering the intra-individual progress of patients with bilateral cleft lip, jaw and palate. The fundamental frequency at the second and third investigation time points was significantly lower (p=0.003; p=0.000) than that at the baseline investigation. We observed no significant differences regarding that parameter at the various time points when evaluating the children with unilateral cleft lip, jaw and palate. Careful appraisal of the individual vowels showed that the speech results correlated with the severity of the type of cleft. Since the fundamental frequency and analysis of the first formant have proven to be suitable parameters for the analytical description of the vocal timbre of cleft patients, our results provide a solid basis for further studies. We provided evidence that this investigatory method is also effective when considering time and equipment requirements.

Low level auditory processing of simple and complex sounds in autism

The documented dissociation between enhanced and diminished auditory processing performance in autistic listeners may be linked to the neural complexity required to process auditory stimuli. To test this hypothesis, four discrimination experiments were designed targeting pitch, spectral envelope, vocal timbre, and loudness. A range of pure- and complex-tone stimuli, with or without frequency or amplitude modulation, varied along spectral and temporal dimensions. An adaptive procedure was used to assess the auditory discrimination thresholds of groups of high-functioning participants with autism (HFA), Asperger syndrome (ASP), and typically developing individuals (TDs). Our research question was whether increasing the level of spectral and/or temporal complexity would have a detrimental impact on autistic listeners' ability to discriminate between acoustic stimuli. Preliminary results suggest that auditory discrimination performance of the latter group is not as dependent on levels of spectro-temporal complexity as originally predicted. The results will be interpreted in the context of current perceptually based models of enhanced and diminished perceptual functioning in autism.

Modeling vocal sounds in polyphonic musical audio signals

This paper describes our research aimed at modeling vocal sounds (singing voices) in available music recordings and its applications to singer identification, singer similarity, and lyrics synchronization. Our predominant‐F0 estimation method, PreFEst, can obtain the melody line by modeling the input sound mixture as a weighted mixture of harmonic‐structure tone models (probability density functions) of all possible F0s and estimating their weights and the tone models by MAP estimation. Since the PreFEst was designed for general melodies, we extended it to specialize in vocal melodies by using vocal timbre models ‐‐‐ vocal and nonvocal GMMs. Those GMMs are trained beforehand and used to evaluate the vocal probability. The GMMs are also used to identify vocal regions, but its strategy should depend on applications. For singer identification and singer‐similarity calculation, since the purpose is to model singer's identity by training each singer's vocal GMM, certainly reliable vocal regions should be ident...

Louis Armstrong's “Skid Dat De Dat”: Timbral Organization in an Early Scat Solo

Louis Armstrong sang and played music with an expressive force that has defied time's corrosive affects and musicologists' analytic methods. While his work as an instrumentalist has received much attention in the scholarly literature, his work as a vocalist has not. In order to gain a complete grasp of Armstrong's contribution as an artist, we need to consider his singing. Moreover, his work as a scat vocalist challenges us to enrich our understanding of jazz improvisation by exposing musical data that standard musical notation omits. Using theoretical tools from applied linguistics to represent and analyze scat syllables, this research gives us a rich understanding of the technical resources at Armstrong's disposal. After an overview of relevant theoretical ideas from this field, the proposed method sheds light on Armstrong's vocal technique by guiding listeners through an analysis of Armstrong's singing on “Skid Dat De Dat.” Phonetic transcriptions and audio waveforms provide useful alternatives to standard musical notation, revealing the control Armstrong exerted over vocal timbre and the specific ways in which Armstrong's phrasing and articulation contribute to his swing. The analysis clarifies relationships between timbre and other musical elements, such as rhythm, dynamics, and pitch. The methods offered here gives jazz scholars new tools for analyzing timbre, phrasing, articulation, and accentuation. By bringing into perspective the multidimensional sound image that impelled musicians to create jazz, these methods can improve our understanding of the specific ways in which African American musicians and their imitators have used music as an expressive language, as a repertoire, as a tradition, and as a story that they tell about themselves and their people.

Relato, relajo, and recording

This article analyzes the dialogic play of temporalities and voices in a series of solo autobiographical cassettes recorded by Rodolfo Garcia, a former tent show comedian from San Antonio, Texas, on his home stereo between 1990 and 2000. Made while I was interviewing Mr. Garcia about his World War II-era career in show business, these recordings represent a rare intervention by a research ‘consultant’ in the ethnographic process. On the tapes, Mr. Garcia alternates between telling stories from his life and career, performing material from his repertoire as a comedian, and singing karaoke-like over a recording of the music of the Mexican singer and composer Agustin Lara. During instrumental breaks, he performs a conversation among three characters distinguished by different vocal timbres whose creative deixis reframes the mechanically reproduced music as a ‘live’ performance in a fictitious nightclub. In the relajo, Mr. Garcia moves almost entirely away from a denotationally explicit mode of representing the past and nearly abandons the idea of producing a self-contained, fully intelligible statement in favor of a somewhat opaque reenactment. Ostensibly a demonstration of his comic act, the relajo also incorporates material from his more recent past, bringing personal traumas and disappointments that he could not narrate explicitly into the autobiographical statement.

Singers’ self-perception of harmonics

Historically, singers have relied on the sensation of resonance as a guide in vocal production. The use of terms such as focus and placement have been primary tools in traditional vocal pedagogy. In a newer method of acoustic training, singers can be taught to discern three bands of harmonics which are key elements of vocal timbre: ring, brightness, and nasality. Each of these harmonic bands has particular sonic and expressive characteristics and are easily amplified or attenuated. Ring, at 2500–3500 Hz, is the most penetrating of the three and is acutely heard by the human ear. Ring aids singers in being heard without electronic amplication. Brightness, comprised of harmonics in the approximate range of 5–15 kHz, lacks the penetrating quality of ring but is an important conveyor of the emotion of happiness and expressive traits such as sincerity and innocence. Nasality, broadly occuring in the 200–2000 Hz range, has a characteristic buzziness and is used in commercial singing styles for amplitude and expressive enhancement. Live vocal demonstrations will show how a singer can create, isolate, and combine ring, brightness, and nasality.

Perceptual Continuity and Naturalness of Expressive Strength in Singing Voices Based on Speech Morphing

This paper experimentally shows the importance of perceptual continuity of the expressive strength in vocal timbre for natural change in vocal expression. In order to synthesize various and continuous expressive strengths with vocal timbre, we investigated gradually changing expressions by applying the STRAIGHT speech morphing algorithm to singing voices. Here, a singing voice without expression is used as the base of morphing, and singing voices with three different expressions are used as the target. Through statistical analyses of perceptual evaluations, we confirmed that the proposed morphing algorithm provides perceptual continuity of vocal timbre. Our results showed the following: (i) gradual strengths in absolute evaluations, and (ii) a perceptually linear strength provided by the calculation of corrected intervals of the morph ratio by the inverse (reciprocal) function of an equation that approximates the perceptual strength. Finally, we concluded that applying continuity was highly effective for achieving perceptual naturalness, judging from the results showing that (iii) our gradual transformation method can perform well for perceived naturalness.

Music That Represents Culture: Selecting Music with Integrity

On a recent walk through a conference exhibit hall lively with the din of conversation and intermittent musical sounds, I was drawn to a flurry of activity at a music vendor. Among the rows of music books, octavos, recordings, and scores were about a dozen teachers searching for new additions to their curricula. As an observer, I couldn't help wondering what guided their decisions. Especially interesting to me were the more adventurous teachers searching through the multicultural bins. How did they determine what music would be a viable addition to their curricula? While perusing the music, they might have been asking, Will my students enjoy listening to this recording? Is this concert band arrangement of a Mexican ballad faithful to the original? Is there any information about the typical performance style of a Navajo circle-dance song? Can my students produce the vocal timbre it calls for? Is there someone from the culture I can consult about this jazz-band arrangement of Puerto Rican salsa? Answers to these questions could help determine if the music is a suitable fit.

Beyond the cover version: encouraging student performers to produce original interpretations of popular songs

David Brackett's notion of musical codes, discussed in his book Interpreting popular music (2000), offers tertiary music students an opportunity to think about interpretation and performing, about what is conveyed through performing, and connections with extra-musical factors. This article discusses comments made by a class of tertiary music performance students about three different performers' interpretations of Nature Boy by Eden Ahbez. Using Brackett's musical codes as a listening guide, students noted a high proportion of off-the-score issues (including vibrato, vocal timbre and vocal register), which supports Davies' description of ‘thin’ works with few determinative properties in his book Musical works and performances: A philosophical education (2001). Brackett's musical codes also stimulate recognition and consequently encourage discussion of the different ways a musical performance is constructed. The musicological frame of Brackett's codes can help students see musicology as a relevant and informing part of their practice.

Pedagogical Efficiency of Melodic Contour Mapping Technology as it Relates to Vocal Timbre in Singers of Classical Music Repertoire

The purpose of this investigation was to ascertain the pedagogical viability of computer-generated melodic contour mapping systems in the classical singing studio, as perceived by their resulting effect (if any) on vocal timbre when a singer's head and neck remained in a normal singing posture. The evaluation of data gathered during the course of the study indicates that the development of consistent vocal timbre produced by the classical singing student may be enhanced through visual/kinesthetic response to melodic contour inversion mapping, as it balances the singer's perception of melodic intervals in standard musical notation. Unexpectedly, it was discovered that the system, in its natural melodic contour mode, may also be useful for teaching a student to sing a consistent legato line. The results of the study also suggest that the continued development of this new technology for the general teaching studio, designed to address standard musical notation and a singer's visual/kinesthetic response to it, may indeed be useful.

The Acoustic Characteristics of Professional Opera Singers Performing in Chorus Versus Solo Mode

In this study, members of a professional opera chorus were recorded using close microphones, while singing in both choral and solo modes. The analysis included computation of long-term average spectra (LTAS) for the two song sections performed and calculation of singing power ratio (SPR) and energy ratio (ER), which provide an indication of the relative energy in the singer's formant region. Vibrato rate and extent were determined from two matched vowels, and SPR and ER were calculated for these vowels. Subjects sung with equal or more power in the singer's formant region in choral versus solo mode in the context of the piece as a whole and in individual vowels. There was no difference in vibrato rate and extent between the two modes. Singing in choral mode, therefore, required the ability to use a similar vocal timbre to that required for solo opera singing.